


Something to Talk About

by msred



Series: Starting Over [5]
Category: American (US) Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Kiss and Tell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25484512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msred/pseuds/msred
Summary: How do you tell people that one year after your husband died, you started dating one of the biggest movie stars in the world?
Relationships: Chris Evans (Actor) & Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor) & Reader, Chris Evans (Actor) & You, Chris Evans (Actor)/Original Female Character(s), Chris Evans (Actor)/Reader, Chris Evans (Actor)/You
Series: Starting Over [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1423663
Comments: 88
Kudos: 60





	1. Ashley

_ 1 day together (January, Year 2) _

I ’d been awake for a while, my eyes fixed, but not focused, on the ceiling above me. I’d fallen asleep more quickly, and more deeply, the previous night than I had in a long, long time, but I’d also woken early. And disoriented. I had nearly panicked at first, confused by my surroundings. It had been many months, a few years, probably, since I’d slept anywhere that wasn’t my home, my mother’s, or Ashley’s. The mattress was too plush, the pillows too soft, the duvet too cloud-like for me to be in any of those places, and in my just awakening state it confused me. As I'd awoken fully, though, I remembered where I was, and even that I’d woken up there the previous morning, and why that was the case. And then my heart had started to race. Because the memories I had of the previous day, well, they couldn’t be actual memories. They were daydreams, fantasies. Because there was no way I’d woken up in that bed the morning before, gotten bundled up in my warmest coat and gloves and faux-fur lined boots, and gone to watch the inauguration of our 46th president. And I hadn’t done all that with Chris Evans, him standing right behind me the entire time and wrapping his arms around me when I started to tremble from the cold. And there was  _ definitely  _ no way that later that same night, we’d sat on the couch on the other side of the bedroom door, talking and holding each other and  _ kissing  _ until I started to drift off in his arms, my head on his chest and my body curled into his.

My skin had tingled when I thought about that, and even as the time passed and I became more and more fully conscious, I couldn’t quite allow myself to believe it was all real. But then I heard him on the other side of the door; little things, really, the tv coming on only for the volume to fall drastically within the first couple seconds, water running, followed by the small single-cup coffee pot gurgling, the clink of metal against ceramic and his low hum - an 80s rock song I recognized but couldn’t quite place - as he stirred cream and sugar into his coffee. And while I still wasn’t convinced that I hadn’t dreamed the kissing and the cuddling and the sweet, silly words murmured into my ear as college football played, all but ignored, on the tv in front of us, there was no denying that he was most definitely on the other side of that door, in the living room of our suite, in quite a good mood, from the sound of it. My hands flew up, palms over my face, and it was all I could do not to squeal as I stretched then kicked my legs a little in almost childlike excitement. Even if I was imagining hinting to him that I had feelings for him, then leaning in for a kiss, a kiss that he enthusiastically reciprocated, I was glad I was there, and I was especially glad I was there with him. 

I  grabbed my glasses off the nightstand and rolled off the closest edge of the bed, reluctant to leave the comfort of the pillows and blankets but eager to see him, and padded toward the en suite bathroom. I went through the normal ‘just-woke-up’ routine quickly, peeing and brushing my teeth and running a brush through my hair but forgoing my contacts for the moment, and made my way back into the bedroom, grabbing my bra from the previous day off the top of my suitcase as I went and pulling my arms inside my pajama top to slide it on. Finally put together, at least as much as I ever was when I emerged from my own bedroom when he’d slept over in my guestroom, I went out into the living room. The layout of the suite meant that I saw him before he saw me, coming in from behind where he sat on the couch -  _ that  _ couch, the one where we may or may not have spent the second half of a college bowl game wrapped up in one another, alternating between kisses and quiet conversation.

" Good morning,” I said, quietly, as I rounded the end of the couch opposite where he was sitting. His head came up from where he was bent forward, tying his shoes, I thought, and when he looked at me, a wide, sincere smile bloomed over his face.

“Hey you,” he said, a few decibels louder than I’d been, and reached for me with one hand. I set my hand gingerly in his and no sooner had his fingers closed around mine than he was tugging, kind of abruptly, laughing when I squeaked in surprise and nearly tumbled down next to him. He let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer until my shoulder fitted into his armpit and my upper body angled around toward him. I let my hand rest on his stomach and he leaned to kiss the top of my head as I settled it on his shoulder. “I was trying to be quiet, not wake you.”

“Rude,” I murmured into his chest and settled myself a little more firmly against him, my hand sliding from just above his belly button to curl around his hip. Somewhere between the smile on his face when he saw me, beautiful and genuine and warm, and that soft, sweet kiss pressed to my hair, I had come to terms with the reality that, well, that everything I remembered  _ was  _ reality. And that realization settled heavy and warm and comforting in my stomach, allowing me to give in to the instincts that screamed for me to soak up his warmth and hold onto him.

He laughed. “Funny, I think what you meant to say was  _ Aww, how considerate of you sweetie, thank you. _ ” I felt him pull away a little on the word ‘sweetie,’ his voice dropping a bit, and I looked up at him, my mouth turned up in a slightly sarcastic grin that probably did nothing to conceal how happy his use of the pet name had made me. His eyes went instantly from cautious and questioning to teasing, and as soon as he finished the sentence he widened his eyes and stuck his tongue out at me.

I kicked at his ankle with my bare foot and narrowed my eyes. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye.” I kicked him again. “Rude.” It had been settled from the beginning that he’d probably be leaving before me; he had a flight to catch, I didn’t. Besides, we’d staggered all of our entrances and exits to and from the hotel for the past day and a half just to keep any potential prying eyes off of me. We certainly weren’t going to walk out of the hotel together on our final departure, a fact only solidified by the fact that we had gone from being friends the first several times to being, well, whatever exactly we were at that point. (Were we boyfriend and girlfriend, after one night, just a couple hours, of very lovely but rather tame kissing? Hell, were those even terms people used when they were 35 and 39?)

“I was,” he confirmed, his chin settling back on the top of my head when I gave him my best ‘offended’ look and turned my face back down and away from him, resting my cheek on his chest to pout. His hand went from my shoulder to my hair, combing lightly through it, lifting it off my neck and shoulder and letting it fall again before going back to the roots and starting over again. “Because we had a long day yesterday and you went to bed a little late and you have to drive back home today. I wanted to let you sleep.” He brushed my hair away from my face and craned down to look at me. I only pouted harder back up at him. He rolled his eyes, “But I wrote you a note,” he nodded toward the coffee table in front of us, where a sheet of hotel stationery covered in his neat, mostly capital scrawl, the bottom third folded up over the middle section, and a pen lay on its surface. So maybe he  _ hadn’t  _ been tying his shoes when I came out. “That’s gotta count for some romance brownie points, right?” He squeezed my shoulder. “You work with teenagers, do kids still do that? Pass notes to their girlfriends?”

My stomach flipped and a full-body flush warmed my skin; I guess that answered that. Done pouting, I just shrugged before looking up at him. “I think they just text, use social media.”

“Yeah, well, I like my way better.” He kissed me, softly, smiling as he pulled away.

“So do I,” I told him, my thumb drifting back and forth over his side, just before I tilted my chin up to kiss him again. He smiled against my lips and kissed me twice more, soft, sweet little pecks, then his phone started to vibrate on the end table. 

He pressed one more kiss to my cheek and sighed as he pulled away to reach for his phone. “It’s my reminder,” he told me, turning off the notification without looking at it. “My car’s supposed to be here in five minutes.”

I wanted to pout, to wrap myself around him and (mostly) jokingly beg him not to leave. But for as well as I knew him as my friend, and for as ridiculously comfortable as I was in that relationship, I couldn’t help but worry it would drive him away, my clinginess a turn-off. So I just nodded, my smile a little sad, and pulled away from him to sit up straighter and allow him to do the same. He leaned forward and, using his fingertips, pushed his note a little farther down the table toward me, winking at me as he did. I felt myself blush as he stood and I followed him up, trailing a couple steps behind him as he made his way toward the door, where his suitcase stood, his jacket and a scarf folded neatly on top of it. 

“Check out’s at noon,” he told me, turning to face me and taking one step forward to close the distance between us by half and rest his hands on my hips, “but I can swing by the desk and ask for a later check out if you want to hang out longer, maybe order some breakfast, relax in that giant tub you freaked out about the other day.”

I rolled my eyes at his teasing and he snickered. “No, I’ll probably head out soon myself. If I grab a quick shower then pick up a coffee and a sandwich from the shop downstairs, I can be home by lunch and have the afternoon to get ready to go back to work tomorrow.”

He nodded and pulled me forward, kissing my forehead when I rested my hands on his biceps. “Well, I’ll get wi-fi on the plane, text me when you’re heading out and the second you pull into your driveway,” he pressed both thumbs against me just above my hipbones for a second, “and not a single time in between.”

I brought my right hand to my forehead in a mock salute, “Yes, sir.”

“Troublemaker,” he complained, his eyes sparkling as he did. “I’ll call you after dinner?” I nodded. “That’ll give you time to get settled and get your work done, then I won’t feel bad about distracting you all evening.” I tried to contain my grin, really, but it was a fairly futile attempt, so I gave up and just nodded again. His thumb tapped repeatedly on my hip and he sighed. “Fuck. I’m running out of things to say to drag this out,” he laughed self-deprecatingly under his breath and slid his hands to the small of my back, pulling me closer still in the process. “I wrote down all the sappy stuff, so I’ll save us both the embarrassment of saying it out loud, just …” he trailed off for a few seconds, and I couldn’t help but think he sounded a little unsure of himself, self-conscious, even, “read it, yeah?”

“Of course,” I assured him, dragging my hands up his arms and onto his broad shoulders. “I mean, reading’s like, my favorite thing,” I joked, grinning up at him, a little cheeky, “some might even say I do it like it’s my job.”

He shook his head, dropping his forehead to mine as he did, and squeezed his arms around my waist a little. “God, you’re fuckin’ cute.” The fondness in his voice had me biting my bottom lip and looking up at him through my lashes.

I truly had no idea how we’d ended up there, like that, and in the back of my mind I knew how fragile it was, but I was trying so hard to just  _ be there _ , in that moment, with him. Even still, I must have been a little tense, or maybe something in my eyes gave me away, because he brought one hand to my cheek and said, “Hey, this is good, remember?” I took a deep breath and nodded. “And it can be great. Just, don’t stop communicating with me, keep me in the loop with what’s going on in here,” he tapped one finger just in front of my ear and I nodded again, and he pressed his palm a little more firmly to my cheek, nearly cradling my whole face in his hand while the other hand tensed a little on the small of my back, his fingers pressing me against him. He tilted my face up toward him and pressed his lips to mine, moving gently and carefully against me until I reciprocated the kiss. His tongue teased my lips and I parted them so that his tongue could slide languidly over mine, just for a second, before it was retreating again. I was just on the verge of pushing up onto my toes to repeat his actions back to him when I felt his phone vibrate in his hip pocket.

His eyes were closed when he pulled back and his jaw ticked as he reached into his pocket. “Shit,” he hissed as he looked at the text before shoving his phone back into his jeans, “I really have to go.”

“I know,” I smiled softly, letting my hands slide down to rest on his chest. “You’ve got a plane to catch.”

“But I don’t  _ want  _ to.” I giggled when he literally whined, his nose wrinkling in something akin to disgust, and his head rolled down and to one side then back up in a half circle. The only thing missing was the foot stamp. His chest rose and fell with a deep breath, a huff, really, and he rolled his eyes before straightening his facial expression. “Alright, c’mon Evans, get it together. Be a grown-up. It’s just eight days, right?” I grinned and nodded. “I can do eight days, especially if the pay-off is getting to be back under your roof again.”

“I’ll be there,” I closed my hands around his shirt and tugged a little, playfully. “I can’t wait.”

He bent and pulled me in to press a firm kiss against my lips, closed-mouth but searing, then kissed my forehead once before starting to back away. “Okay,” he breathed, “drive careful. And like I said, text me on your way out and when you get home.” I nodded once and he turned to pick up his suitcase and throw his jacket and scarf over one arm, turning back one last time to throw me a wink over his shoulder before he opened the door and pulled it closed behind him. 

I waited only a couple seconds before making a beeline for the bedroom I’d stayed in. I should have been heading for the shower, based on what I’d said to Chris, but instead I went straight to the nightstand, where my phone was plugged in. I had a very important phone call to make, and if I had to I could just wait and shower when I got home. All I was going to be doing for the next three hours or so was sitting in my car anyway.

I went straight to my favorite contacts list and pressed my thumb on Ashley’s name until the screen flashed green to indicate the call was going through. I was aware that it was relatively early (though still later than I usually got up on a Thursday), but as the mom of a three- and five-year-old, I figured she was awake.

She answered after the second ring. “Well?” Leave it to my almost lifelong best friend to skip any pretense of salutations or small talk and jump straight to the heart of the matter. She knew I’d been in D.C. with Chris for the past two days, she knew that I’d spent the last month and a half weighing the fact that I was aware he had actual, romantic feelings for me, and she knew that, for almost just as long, I’d been agonizing over what to do about that fact, since I couldn’t honestly say that I didn’t also have at least some feelings for him as well, once I knew how he felt and that there was actual possibility there.

“You know the ‘Friends’ pilot?” I asked her, dropping onto the bed as I pulled the charger cord from the bottom of the phone.

She scoffed. “Psht, obviously.” We’d spent more hours than I could begin to count watching the full-season dvds together every time I went back home to Kentucky during college. I had no doubt she’d get the reference I was about to make.

“Well,” I paused, pulling in a deep breath, and I knew exactly how long I could wait until she snapped at me. At the last possible moment, I told her, “I grabbed a spoon.”

She squealed and I laughed as I fell back onto the mattress. Normally a comparison to Ross, of all characters, would make me cringe deep in my soul, but in that particular situation, the metaphor he’d used to tell Chandler and Joey that he’d expressed to Rachel his romantic interest in her seemed all too fitting.

“Oh my god,” Ashley almost yelled into the phone, “this is amazing. What did he - wait, aren’t you still with him?” Her question sounded more like an accusation, like she was appalled at the thought that I might be calling  _ her  _ while I was still with  _ him. _

Before I could catch myself I was sighing. “No, he left just before I called you. He had to make his plane. I’ll be heading out soon, I just wanted to call you first.”

“In  _ that  _ case, details woman, details!”

I threw my free arm over my eyes, wincing a bit when my glasses dug into the bridge of my nose, adjusting my arm just until the pressure subsided. “Don’t you have mom-ming to do?” I teased.

“Jacob’s at school and Jonah just dumped the entire bin of Legos, which means he’s occupied for at least the next thirty minutes. Now,” the sudden change in her tone made me feel like I was being scolded just like one of her boys, “you called me, so spill it. And don’t you dare leave anything out, you know I’m starved for adult interaction.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head under my arm. She could say whatever she wanted, she loved being a full-time mom and she was damn good at it. But she was also the best friend I could ever dream of asking for, and I knew that what she was really saying was that she wanted me to fill her in so she could make sure I was good. “How far back do you want me to go?"

"The beginning,” she answered as if I’d offended her by asking something so obvious as to barely warrant an answer.

“Well, I was born June 16, 1985 -”

“Woman,” she growled, “I said you’ve got 30 minutes. This is no time for games.” I laughed as I pushed myself up to sitting and turned to lean back against the headboard. “You got there on Tuesday, right?” I hummed in affirmation. “Okay then, start with Tuesday.”

I took a deep breath and grabbed a pillow, hugging it to my chest with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone and pulling my knees up in front of me. “There’s not much to tell from Tuesday, really. He got here around three, I think, to check in, and I got in around dinner time, since I worked that day. He’d ordered Italian take-out from this really great place a few blocks away and had it waiting when I got here, and I went down and got a bottle of wine and a few beers from the hotel bar. We just hung out, had dinner in the room, watched some football, went to bed. It was a lot like both times he’s stayed at my house.” 

“So what you’re telling me is you spent all of Tuesday evening in your shared hotel room.” I knew the look on Ashley’s face even without seeing her. Her voice carried a healthy dose of skepticism, and I was sure her eyebrows were raised high on her forehead and her head was cocked a bit to one side, lips pursed.

I rolled my eyes and tucked the pillow under my chin a little more. “Not like  _ that _ , you. First of all, it’s a hotel  _ suite _ , not a room. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room with a tiny kitchenette area.” I looked through the still-open bedroom door at the back of the couch and the television in the living room and couldn’t help but smile a little. “I think it may actually be bigger than my college apartment,” I joked, but I didn’t even get a scoff. She was very serious about getting to the details. “Secondly, by the time I got here it just made so much more sense to hang out here, make it a night in. It gave us both a chance to rest and avoided any potential issues with us, well,  _ him, _ being  _ spotted  _ out and about.”

"Okay, fine, you wasted Tuesday, got it.”

I  shook my head and pursed my lips, sucking my teeth a little. “I’m so blessed to have such a loving, supportive best friend, really.”

“It’s because I love you that I call it like it is.” Her words were blunt, but her voice was warm. And, I knew, what she said was true. We’d been best friends for almost our entire lives, far too long to worry about sugarcoating things. No matter how sharp the delivery, I knew she never had anything other than my best interests at heart, never wanted anything other than for me to be happy. “So keep going, the clock is ticking. I’m seeing some real progress on that Lego tower.”

" Fine, fine.” I tried to sound annoyed, but really I was just organizing my thoughts, trying to figure out how to get into the rest of it. Because while I wasn’t afraid of being honest with Ashley, I was having a hard time, suddenly, processing everything in my own brain. While Chris had been there, sweet and cute and wonderfully affectionate, it had felt almost normal to be curled up on the couch with him, talking and laughing and kissing. But by that point, feeling small and alone in my bed in the two bedroom suite, my mind was starting to register how odd the whole situation was. It had been a year since my husband had died, and to say that I hadn’t been looking for a relationship would be an understatement. But then one day there was Chris, literally on my doorstep (or the doorstep of my school, at least), sweeping in just as funny and charming and kind as I’d always hoped he was in real life. And it really felt like one minute he was this movie star who I was too deep in a funk to truly appreciate meeting, and the next minute he was my friend, helping me through both personal and professional trials, and somehow, without me seeing it coming in the least, the next thing I knew he was telling me that he liked the idea of maybe being more than that. I’d been too blindsided in that moment to think of anything other than  _ I’m not ready for this!  _ But over the following weeks I'd started to feel like maybe I wanted it more than I had initially realized, and the previous night, sitting on that couch with him, watching him watch football and thinking about the day we’d spent together, hell, about the past several months really, my heart fully caught up to everything that had probably been there for a while, under the surface. But having to put it all into words, to bring someone else into that bubble, made me suddenly self-conscious and more than a little anxious. Who was I to even think something like this could work?

“Honestly, Ashley,” my heart started to pound and I could feel the hints of panic starting to rise up in me, “I don’t, was this a good idea? I mean, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m insane, right? This is crazy.”

"Hey, take a deep breath.” I nodded and did as she said, and either she heard the deep breath I drew in or she just expected me to obey, because she waited. “You okay?” she asked after several long seconds. I squeezed the pillow a little tighter in my grip and nodded my head, another gesture she wouldn’t see.

"Yeah, I think so. Anxiety moment.”

“I know.” Her voice was soothing and I thought of how good a mom I’d always observed her to be. “Okay, all joking aside, you’ve gotta give me some details so I can talk you through this, okay?”

" Okay.”

“Okay, good. So, tell me about the inauguration.”

" Oh, no,” I rubbed the pillowcase between my thumb and forefinger, “nothing happened there. Not really anyway.”

“Tell me about the inauguration,” she insisted, her voice low and steady and gentle.

I sighed. “Okay. Umm, well, there were so many people there,” my eyes rolled to the ceiling just thinking about it, “so many people. That was good though, because we were pretty sure we’d get lost in the crowd, you know?” She hummed. “So we were just packed in with everyone else, and he was standing behind me, because I think he was being a little protective, if that makes sense. Like, if someone would bump into me or something he’d kind of grab my arms and hold onto me.” She made a small sound in the back of her throat that I wouldn’t even have heard if I hadn’t paused to remember the way that had felt. “So yeah, it was crowded and a little chaotic, but like, amazing.” I chuckled through my nose. “It just made me feel hopeful. Buuuut, also cold.” She laughed then. “I didn’t notice it at first, with all the excitement, but eventually I was shaking like a leaf. Everyone around me could probably hear my teeth chattering. So,” I paused, bit my lip, tensed my entire body for a second, “he put his arms around me and just, held me, the rest of the time we were there.”

S he let the quiet sit between us for a moment then asked, “And how did you feel then?”

“Warmer.”

S he made a little  _ tsch  _ sound from between her teeth. “That’s very literal, but okay. Alright, so then what? After the inauguration, just walk me through it.”

" Umm,” the afternoon was kind of a blur, honestly, “lunch at this really awesome little hole in the wall Central American place, walking around doing touristy shit, dinner at the same Italian place we ordered from on Tuesday.” I realized that contradicted what I’d said before about not being spotted on Tuesday, and I rushed to explain. “We figured between the motorcade after the ceremony, then all the stuff at the White House, and all the flurry leading up to the balls last night, people would be distracted enough that no one would really notice him. I don’t  _ think  _ we drew any attention.”

"You don’t owe me an explanation,” she said gently.

I scoffed, “Okay, miss ‘I want details.’”

"N ot the same thing and you know it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

" And speaking of those details …” she let her voice trail off.

I dropped my legs from where they tented up in front of me, folding them and laying the pillow across my lap.  “Right. So um, after dinner we came back here, grabbed a couple of those drinks I picked up on Tuesday, and got comfy on the couch to watch football. It was all so … normal.” I sighed, the sound conveying contentment, not distress. “Comfortable. Like it always is. And then at halftime, my mind started to race about everything I’d been feeling, and, I just told him. Well,” I rolled my eyes at myself, “I didn’t  _ just  _ tell him. I told him about that conversation I’d had with Brody, the one I told you about, and then,” I took a deep breath as my heart started to race and my stomach flipped, “I kissed him.”

" Okay.” I heard the smile in her voice. “And what did you feel then?”

I laughed, how did I even answer that question? “I mean, I was thinking -”

“No,” she cut me off firmly. “I don’t care what you were thinking. Tell me what you felt. And before you turn this into an innuendo or dirty joke, you know I don’t mean physically.”

Damn. She really wasn’t going to let me off easy. “I felt … happy. Peaceful. Safe.”

“And what did you feel this morning? When you woke up, when you saw him, when he left?”

“Disbelief,” I chuckled, picking at the pillowcase with my thumb and forefinger. “At first anyway. Then nervous, but good nervous, like I had,” I paused and squeezed my eyes tight, “not butterflies, but hummingbirds in my stomach.” She laughed and it made me smile. “Then, just, happy. He used the word  _ girlfriend _ ,” my voice was small, quiet on that last part. I wasn’t embarrassed, not with her, I just still felt somewhere inside me that maybe I was being silly, or even that saying out loud would break the spell. “And when he left, I felt like, like I could tell he didn’t want to. And I didn’t want him to. And I know this sounds weird, backward or whatever, but that made me feel happy, and warm”

“So what I’m hearing,” she talked to me almost like I was one of her kids, and that could be offensive, patronizing, but it just felt like care and concern, “is that in everything that’s happened over the past two days, you felt safe, happy, cared for, and that you initiated the conversation about your romantic feelings, you kissed him first.” My face felt like it was on fire. She wasn’t wrong about anything she’d said, and having it all summed up that way and recited back to me made my hair stand on end and my skin tingle. “I think, maybe,” she spoke softly and slowly, “you need to think a little less right now and trust what you’re feeling.” I didn’t say anything to that - I didn’t know  _ what  _ to say to it - and it was quiet for longer than was comfortable for me. I tossed aside the pillow in my lap and leaned forward to rest my elbow on my knee and prop my chin in my free hand. “Get out of your head for a little while and stay out of your own way.”

“You don’t think I’m going too fast?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. Does it  _ feel  _ too fast?”

“I mean,” I chewed the inside of my cheek for a second, “it felt fast when he told me how he felt last month, but maybe it just took me by surprise. When I think,” I caught myself and stopped, deciding how to reframe what I was about to say, “I feel hopeful at the prospect of him having a more significant role in my life than ‘friend.’ But I also feel scared, really scared, of messing it up because I’m jumping the gun, and then losing him altogether.”

“Does he know that?”

I nodded and switched my phone to the other hand, reaching down to trace nonsense patterns over the blankets with the one I’d just freed up. “He does.”

“And?” she prodded, her voice holding a hint of, well, not impatience, exactly, but expectance.

“And he said we’d go slow.”

“Okay then,” she said in such a matter-of-fact tone that it was as if the whole matter was just settled. “So move slowly, but don’t stop moving. You trust him?”

“Completely.”

“Then go with what you’re feeling, and as long as those feelings stay positive, tell your brain to shut up. And if they don’t stay positive, if you get scared or whatever, talk to him, let him know what you’re feeling. And then, if they  _ stay  _ negative, if it turns out it’s more than your anxiety talking,  _ then _ let your brain step in.”

I turned to drop my legs off the side of the bed so my feet hit the floor. “You’re kinda smart, you know,” I told her as I made my way across the room to my suitcase.

“I can put out fires all day, as long as they’re not my own.” I laughed at her self-deprecation as I finished pulling the day’s clothes from the suitcase and took them into the bathroom. “So now that we’ve shut up that asshole anxiety monster in your head, I want the real details, the good stuff.”

My cheeks started to burn and when I looked in the mirror over the sink I saw the pink already rising up my neck. “I mean,” I dropped my head and tapped my fingers a couple times on the top of the vanity then turned to head back out into the living room to get a glass of water, “what exactly do you want to know?”

“All of it!” she almost yelled. “I mean, I know you didn’t sleep with him. Wait. You  _ didn’t  _ sleep with him, right? I mean, not that I’m judging, but, you know, slow and all.”

“No,” I confirmed as I filled the water glass from the small sink in the kitchenette area. “I didn’t sleep with him. Um,” I’d already given her the outline of the previous day, so I thought over exactly where to start with the specifics. “Well, okay. We were watching football and there was, I guess, accidental contact? Between us. His arm was on the back of the couch and I stretched and leaned back and suddenly my head was on his arm. And he didn’t move it.”

She scoffed. “That’s not accidental contact.”

“I really was stretching!” I protested.

“Yeah. I’m sure you were. Just like I’m sure he put his arm on the back of the couch, not touching you, because respect, but close enough that you could take it as an invitation if you wanted to.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but stopped before the words came out, because I knew there was a fair chance she wasn’t wrong. So instead, I ignored her and kept going. “Anyway, I was sitting there with my head on his arm and it just, it felt  _ good _ . And I realized how good everything feels with him.” I made my way to the couch and I saw the note he’d left on the coffee table and it took everything I had not to just stop talking right then to read it. Instead I bent to flip it over face-down on the table before sitting down. “Even when he told me what he told me back in December, I didn’t feel ready at the time, but it didn’t like,  _ scare  _ me. If anything I was scared of losing his friendship because he thought he needed to give me space or something. Anyway," I brought myself back to the present - or the more recent past, anyway. I didn't need to tell Ashley how my feelings had evolved over the past six weeks or so, how once the idea of a relationship was in my head I started to consider that maybe it was something I was more ready for than I had previously realized, because she'd already been my sounding board every step of the way. She just needed the update from the past 12 hours or so. "I told him about dinner with Brody and how Brody asked if I had feelings for him, and he just kind of  _ looked _ at me. I mean, not demanding or anything, but, you know, curious."

"And?"

"And I chickened out. I couldn't just  _ say  _ it. But I'm pretty sure he caught me looking at his lips, because he just kind of smiled and put his hand on my back, and … I kissed him."

I swear I heard her let out a swoony sigh. "How was it?" Her voice was quiet, even dreamy, which was uncommon for her.

"It was …" I closed my eyes and sank back into the couch cushions, "he has wonderful lips. And his beard is surprisingly soft. And I don't really  _ know  _ how to describe it. It was really, really good. I can say that. It made me feel," I went on, already expecting that to be her next question, "warm, and fuzzy-happy. Like red wine."

"Does it make me a bad wife to admit I'm a little jealous right now?"

I laughed. "I promise I won't tell Jonathan."

"I'd appreciate that," she giggled. "And so this morning was good? No awkwardness or whatever?"

I looked again to the note on the table and  _ god  _ I wanted to read it. "No. I mean, when I first woke up I wasn't sure it was real. I was a good 75% sure I’d dreamed it all. But then he acted just like he did last night, holding me and kissing me, and like I said, he called me his girlfriend, which for a split second made me feel like I  _ should  _ be panicking, but I wasn’t. I saved that for you,” I teased, and I heard her mutter a sarcastic  _ thanks  _ as I went on. “And then he had to leave, after dragging it out as long as he could, which was adorable.” I found myself smiling down at my lap, watching my fingers play with the hem of my shorts. “And then I called you.”

“It sounds like this is a really good thing that’s starting off exactly the way it should.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it kinda feels that way too.”

“Good.” I heard a crash through the phone and a groan from my friend. “Yeah, okay, I’m gonna have to go deal with that. But hey, hold onto that feeling okay?” I hummed in agreement. “And remember, you’re not doing anything wrong. You deserve this, you deserve to be happy. And anxiety or no, I can tell this makes you happy. Love you.”

“Love you too. Thanks.”

“Anytime, babe.” She hung up before I had a chance to say anything else.

Ashley was right. I knew she was right. I wasn’t ready to jump in too deep, or move too fast, but I knew, I’d known for a while, I think, that I was ready for more than what we’d been. I’m convinced I wouldn’t have been ready at that time to just start dating, in the broader sense, but once upon a time I’d told him, sitting on my couch, that if and when I did venture into a new relationship I’d want it to be with someone who was a friend first, that it felt like there was something sacred about the way a relationship like that grows. And that’s exactly what had happened with him.

I scooted to the edge of the couch cushion and finally allowed myself to reach out and pick up the note he’d left. 

_ Hey Pretty Girl - _

_ I hate to leave without saying goodbye - I hate to leave at all - but I didn’t want to wake you. It’s not like you need the beauty sleep, but I want you nice and rested for your drive home.  _

_ I don’t want to get too sappy on you (have to save something for down the road), but I can’t leave here without telling you how happy I am that you’re taking this chance and letting me in. I know you’re nervous, and you have every right to be. But just know that we’ll go at your pace and I’ll always be your friend first, then I’ll happily and gratefully take whatever else you want to give. I’m not sure exactly what this all means to you, as far as where we stand, but just to lay all my cards on the table, there’s no one else in the picture for me. There hasn’t been for a long time and there’s not going to be for as long as there’s so much as a hint of a chance of us. I guess what I’m saying is, I’d really like to be your boyfriend, if you’ll have me. (Yes, I know how cheesy that is. And no, I’m not 12. But like a kid, I guess I’m writing you a letter asking if you want to be my girlfriend.) _

_ Okay, now that I’ve sufficiently shown what a big meatball I am, I’ll close by saying that I can’t wait to be back down with you next week. Text me when you’re leaving the hotel and again when you get home, and I’ll call you tonight unless you tell me you don’t want me to. Have a good morning and drive safe Sweet Girl, and I’ll talk to you later. _

_ ~Chris _


	2. The Kids

_ 3 Weeks together (February, Year 2) _

As I loved to do whenever schedules allowed - which was less and less often as my kids got older - I found myself on President’s Day going to meet Brody, Julie, and Erin for brunch at a nearby coffee shop cafe, since they were all home from school at the same time for the first time in ages. It hadn't even happened at Christmas, not with all of them, at least, and I was seriously missing my 'mom-time.' And yet, I was running behind. I’d called Chris while walking Millie that morning and lost track of time until I was jumping into the shower only 10 minutes before I would have needed to leave to truly be on time, so for maybe the first time in history, I was the last one to arrive. I found them quickly - at 6’4” and with his booming voice and laugh, Brody was hard to miss - sitting at a round table with four chairs, one empty between Brody and Julie with a still-steaming latte in a mug, a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. The coffee was Julie’s doing, I knew. Like me, she was a nurturer with a need to take care of those she loved, and besides, of the three of them, she was probably the only one to have ever paid close enough attention to pick up on my coffee order.

The kids were engrossed in conversation when I approached the table, so I wrapped an arm around Julie’s shoulders and leaned down to whisper a  _ thank you  _ into her ear while Erin talked excitedly about what I assumed was the internship she’d lined up for the summer. They kept talking as I settled in, each acknowledging my arrival in his or her own way, and when Erin finished explaining what her role and responsibilities would be, answering Julie’s and Brody’s questions, they all turned their attention to me. After our initial (loud, effusive) greetings, complete with a visit from our server to take our breakfast order, we all calmed down a little and I watched as Brody settled a little more deeply into his chair. He turned a bit toward me, stretching his long legs in front of him until I had to move my own to accommodate them, and crossing his arms over his chest. Something was up, I knew.

“What about you,  _ mom _ ,” I narrowed my eyes and stared him down skeptically. Unlike some of his classmates, Brody never called me ‘mom,’ opting instead to go with the goofy nickname he’d given me on the first day of his junior year. “Anything big going on in your life?”

I took a sip of my coffee to stall for a second, trying to sort out whether he was getting at what I thought he was getting at. “Just school,” I shrugged, “you know the drill.”

“Seriously?” He quirked one eyebrow high on his head and the expression reminded me so strongly of Chris that I had to look away, looking across the table at Erin and shooting her a tight smile. “That's it? I haven’t seen you in over a month. At dinner,” he didn’t need to add that last part, I knew exactly what he was talking about and he knew it. Neither of us had forgotten the conversation we’d had that evening just before he’d gone back to Charlottesville for school. “And there’s  _ nothing _ new or different going on?”

I turned my smile over to Julie then, and she and Erin had both started to look at me a little curiously. I wasn’t sure if they could pick up on the tension between Brody and me, or if they just wondered what I’d been up to, as Brody was pretending to do. “Umm, okay, well, the movie premiered on base a few weeks ago.” I turned my mug slowly in a circle, watching the foam rise and fall in gentle little waves as the cup moved. I was avoiding bringing up the inauguration, since I hadn’t actually mentioned it to them before I'd gone and that would only invite more questions. “That was interesting.” I shrugged and kept my eyes on the table.

It’s not that I was ashamed of my relationship with Chris. Obviously. There was a tiny part of me that wanted to start every day by shouting to the world that Chris Evans saw me as someone worthy of his affection. But I didn’t, of course. Because on top of just the privacy issue of it all - Chris wanted that as much as I did, because he knew better than anyone the negative effect that excessive media attention could have on a relationship - there was still a small part of me that worried about what people would think about me dating at all. I knew it wasn’t right, that I shouldn’t worry so much about what other people thought about my relationship and the way I was moving my life forward. And I was getting better about it. But I still had moments of self-consciousness in which I began to question whether I was getting ahead of myself, and in those moments, the nagging worries about what other people might think managed to work their way into my brain. So while I knew that most of Chris’s family knew about how our relationship had grown and developed, and I knew that he was more than okay with me sharing with people I loved and trusted, like I’d done with both Ashley and Spencer, I was hesitant to share with anyone else.

Brody hummed, and when I looked back up at him he was nodding slowly. “Yep, that definitely sounds like it could be interesting.” I could tell he planned to say more. I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he planned out what to say next. Before he got it sorted out, though, Julie’s hand landed soft on my forearm and I turned to my other side to face her.

“I still can't believe you did that.” She squeezed my arm, “I mean, on the one hand it's a really cool experience, I guess -”

Erin jumped in, cutting her off even around the straw she’d just put in her mouth to take a sip of her iced coffee, “And you got to meet Chris Evans!” Julie’s eyes widened and her head snapped around to glare at Erin, the look accompanied by a swift smack to her friend’s arm. “Sorry!” Erin glared at Julie, her hand rubbing up and down her arm where Julie had hit her. She looked back at me, shamefaced. “Sorry Mom, I know that's not really the point here, and that's not how you would want to meet someone like that. I just got excited.”

I was hearing everything she was saying, and I was even watching her as she spoke, contrition clear on her features, but at the same time I was watching Brody out of the corner of my eye. He hadn’t stopped sort of staring at me during the whole exchange. If I’d thought he was up to something before, I was completely sure of it by then. 

“Anyway,” Julie ground out, “as I was  _ saying,”  _ she squeezed my arm again and turned away from Erin back to me and I pulled my eyes off Brody to give her my full attention. _ “ _ I know most people would think it was a really interesting experience, and I’m sure it was,” her thumb drifted comfortingly over my arm through my sweater, “but I can't imagine how that must have been tough for you. Are you, was it okay?”

Of all the kids I’d ever ‘adopted,’ Julie was the most like me. She was caring, empathetic, and loved so hard she often broke her own heart. There had been many times that I’d had to remind her of something that my husband had often told me - you can’t expect everyone else to have the same heart that you do. But for as much as my heart broke every time I had to try to help her heal hers, there were no words to express how glad I was to have her on my side when my own heart needed attention.

“Yeah,” Brody said, and his voice had softened significantly, but I could still hear the bit of snark just under the surface, “my dad said you seemed upset.”

“Your,” I started, but before I could go on, our server was back with our food. We all waited quietly, thanking her and assuring her we had everything we needed, then I started over once she was gone. “Your dad was there?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged and speared a chunk of potato on his fork. “You know, retired Colonel and all.” Of course. His dad would have received a courtesy invitation as a retired high ranking officer from the base. Honestly, it was a little surprising that he’d actually gone, because from what I knew about the entire family - which was a fair amount, by that point, having had the pleasure of working with both Brody and one of his older sisters and becoming friends with their mother - I definitely pictured him as someone who would see that sort of event as more of an obligation than something he would choose to participate in. But then, there was the possibility that he had chosen to go because he knew me and had personally met my husband a few times. After chewing and swallowing, Brody went on. “He said you looked kind of upset, and he was going to come check on you, but then before he could get there it looked like someone else had it under control.” His head tilted a little to one side and he just looked at me .

I felt my face heating up and I knew the blush would be visible any second, if it wasn’t already. I dropped my head and watched the tines of my fork tap the edge of my plate. “Brody …” I let my voice trail off, hoping he would take it as the plea it was meant to be.

Erin put the croissant she’d been peeling apart layer by layer back onto her plate and popped one of the thin strips of pastry into her mouth. “Did something happen?”

“It was just a tough day.” I smiled across the table at her sadly and she nodded, her eyes sympathetic.

“That makes sense.” Julie hugged me to her with the arm closer to me and dropped her head to my shoulder. “Did you take someone with you?”

If Julie and Erin were all sympathy and understanding, Brody was all snark and  _ I told you so _ . “Yeah Mom, did you take someone with you? I mean,” he waved his fork in the air a little then pointed it at me, “you had to know someone there, right? If someone was helping you out.” His face went flat as he stared back at me. He knew what he believed had happened, and he was clearly very confident that he was right. There was a part of me that wished he wasn’t, just so I wouldn’t have to give him the satisfaction. But there was another part of me that felt, in a way, that I owed him at least his smugness, considering the hand he’d played in getting me to where I was.

I sighed tiredly. “Are we really doing this right now?” It’s not like I would never have told them about Chris and me. It would’ve happened, eventually, once I’d had a little more time to stop feeling like I was just a little kid playing dress-up in a life that wasn’t mine. And preferably in a far less public setting.

He smirked deviously. “I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just trying to stay involved in your life, like you do with us.” That may have been the first time one of my kids had used my devotion to them against me.

At some point, Erin and Julie had clearly started to pick up on the tension between Brody and me, because they were alternating between staring at each other and darting their eyes back and forth between the two of us. Finally, Erin dropped her fork, the tines falling into her eggs and the handle clattering against the plate, and crossed her arms on the table, leaning into them. “I'm really confused about what's going on right now and I really need someone to fill me in.”

Brody, par for the course, did absolutely nothing to help me out, just sitting back in his chair and lifting one eyebrow. I doubt he even realized what a Chris-like gesture it was, but the similarity, under the circumstances, was a little infuriating. I stared down into my half-empty coffee cup for a few long seconds, then finally dropped my hands to my lap to play with my napkin as I looked up to make eye contact with each of them, starting with Brody and ending with Julie. “So guys, umm, as you know, it's been a little over a year since my husband passed away,” Julie reached for my hand under the table, wrapping hers around it and squeezing, “and I ... I've recently started seeing someone.” 

“I  _ knew  _ it!” Brody exclaimed a bit too loudly. I shot him a look that let him know I wasn’t thrilled with him at the moment. On the one hand, it wasn’t his fault that he already knew what he knew, and yeah, Julie and Erin probably would have been in the next group of people I told. But on the other, I hadn’t planned on telling anyone else so quickly. I’d told Chris that we needed to move slowly to protect this fragile thing we were building that had the potential to be amazing (I’d already upgraded it from  _ good _ ), and for me, that meant not telling many people just yet. Sure, I was worried about the outside judgement, even though I shouldn’t have cared what others thought, but more than that I was worried about the feeling that would come along with that, the overwhelming, terrifying feeling that I had to protect  _ us  _ from the outside world. I was afraid of what that feeling would do inside my head. And I knew I wouldn’t have to do that with my kids, but I had still planned to keep it to myself a bit longer. I continued to almost glare at Brody as he went on, and while it didn’t stop him, his voice did at least take on a somewhat more subdued, contrite tone. “I mean, I didn't, because you didn't  _ tell  _ anyone, but I  _ totally  _ saw this coming.”

Julie pushed her chair back, only to lean forward, her elbows resting on the table and one hand up, finger pointing first at Brody then back at me, alternating with every word. “What. Is. Going. On?” Both hands flew up in the air then, “How did we not know you were dating again?” She actually looked betrayed, and that was yet another reason I hadn’t wanted to have that conversation that morning.

I put my hands up in front of me defensively. “Well, I wouldn't put it that way, exactly. I didn't make a conscious decision to put myself on the market or anything,” I looked across the table at Erin, who just looked confused rather than accusatory, like her friend, “and I'm not  _ dating _ so much as I am with someone, just one person.”

Julie’s expression changed quickly. She pulled her chair back up to the table and grabbed my hand from where I’d rested it just beside my coffee mug. “Well, in that case, when do we get to meet him? You know before anyone gets a chance with you he has to get the approval of your children.” I could tell she was trying to look stern, maybe even sassy, but even while she was trying to purse her lips, I could see the smile tugging at the corners.

“Trust me, you'll approve,” Brody scoffed, and I didn’t turn away from Julie, but I gave him the best side eye I could manage from my position. At the rate he was going, he would have dug a hole large enough for his 6-foot-4 frame in no time.

Erin nearly shrieked, “What?!” My head whipped around the restaurant, and thank god it was less than half full on a Monday morning, because the people who were there were all looking at us; it would have been even worse with more people. I tried my best to look contrite and turned back to my own table to gesture with one hand for Erin to lower her voice. “Brody has met him?” she ground out between her teeth in response, leaning forward over her plate. “How did Brody meet your boyfriend before we did? I feel absolutely betrayed.”

I took a deep breath and tried to smile my most maternal, calming smile. “Okay, technically speaking, Brody did not meet my boyfriend.”

Brody laughed then and I swear to god I almost kicked him under the table. “Technically speaking?” I glared at him, but unlike before, it didn’t seem to faze him. “No, I guess I didn't. I just met your one-act guest mentor. Your co-star, if you will.” He looked then from me to each of the girls in turn, waiting for it to sink in.

Julie seemed to be processing the information a bit more quickly than Erin, or maybe, like me, she just needed to say things out loud to process them, because she spoke, her voice low and measured, “Co-st-,” she stopped abruptly and her eyes grew as wide as silver dollars. “NO.” She slapped my leg under the table, continuing to do so between each of the following words. “You. Are. Dating. Chris. Evans?” The last word was at a pitch that I didn’t even realize she could reach. “You are dating Chris Evans and you didn't TELL US?” Each of the last two words was accompanied by a shove to my shoulder that almost knocked me out of my chair.

“Oh my god,” I started once I’d recovered, sinking down into my chair, “we're in a public place, please stop yelling.” I looked around the restaurant again, as surreptitiously as possible, and while Julie’s outburst had certainly drawn attention, it didn’t look as if anyone had actually taken it to be true. There was no outright staring, no one recording on their phone, it was mostly just a few funny looks and some snickers. I couldn’t blame them, I wouldn’t have believed it either.

Julie’s face was defiant, challenging, but when she spoke again it was much quieter. “Because you don't want everyone to know you're dating Captain America?”

“Because you're embarrassing the crap out of me.” I turned to look at Brody and he looked nothing short of proud. “I hate you so much right now. You're disowned.”

He just grinned. “Did I or did I not call it?” 

I shook my head slowly. “I'm never telling you anything again.” And okay, I hadn't actually told him in the first place, but that wasn't the point. Still, even as I said it, I knew that I meant it right then, but that it wouldn’t last forever. He was the first student in Virginia who had become one of my children, joining only a small handful who I’d semi-adopted in my early years as a middle school teacher in Louisiana; I always joked that he was my ‘first born child.’ I was frustrated with him for pushing me to share more than I’d planned to that morning, but just like if he’d actually been my child, I’d forgive him, probably more quickly than he deserved.

For the next several minutes, though, I didn’t have time to think about being angry at Brody, because I was too busy fielding questions from the girls. The when, the where, the how. They didn’t ask about the why, I suppose they thought I didn't really need a  _ why  _ to date Chris Evans. Over the course of 20 minutes, I’d barely managed to eat half my omelette and a couple bites of toast because I’d spent more time talking than eating. At one point Julie had pointed out that the previous day was Valentine’s Day, and I couldn’t help but blush.

“He couldn’t be here,” I told her around the last sip of my latte, and both girls  _ awwed  _ their sympathy. “No, it’s okay,” I waved them off. “I mean, the long-distance thing sucks in general, but it’s only been three weeks. Trying to celebrate Valentine’s Day would have been a lot of pressure.”

“So,” Erin started, trailing off for a second and looking back at me a little blankly, “your superhot movie star boyfriend didn’t do anything for you for your first Valentine’s Day?”

“Well,” I started, and as I did, I saw something click on Brody’s face. I watched him lean to one side to fish his phone out of his pocket and I rolled my eyes. Of course he’d already seen it. I went on, because while he seemed to be all caught up, the girls most definitely were still in the dark. “We talked, of course, and,” I looked to the side to see Brody with his phone held dramatically in front of his face, his elbow propped on the table and I sighed, “and he posted his typical Valentine’s Day tweet with Dodger, just this time,” I closed my eyes and shook my head before inclining it toward Brody, “I’ll let him tell you, since he’s clearly dying to.”

Brody cleared his throat loudly. “Well, as you can see,” he turned the phone toward Erin then moved it in a semi-circle until we’d all had a chance to get a good look at the picture of Chris at his dining table, Dodger seated squarely in lap - sporting a collar made to look like a shelf full of classic leather-bound novels,  _ The Great Gatsby _ right in the center - his nose pressed to Chris’s cheek right in front of his ear and Chris’s nose scrunched in anticipation of what would undoubtedly come next, “we start with this lovely selfie.” Julie wrapped both of her arms around one of mine and pulled me closer to her, dropping her head to my shoulder like she’d done earlier. That time though, rather than feeling sympathetic, it was accompanied by a dreamy sigh. “And of course, the tweet itself. It reads,” he made a production of clearing his throat yet again, even holding a fist in front of his mouth as he did, “ _ He’s telling me he’s tired of having me as his valentine. He’s had his eye on a cute little border collie mix for a while. I told him to be patient, be her friend first, that’s where the best relationships come from. #HappyValentinesDay”  _ Brody tapped the button on the side of the phone to lock it and set it face-down on the table. “Let me guess, Millie is a …” he drew out the word, smirking at me as he did. 

“Border collie mix,” I confirmed.

Brody just nodded, but both girls squealed a little and Julie hugged my arm tighter. I dropped my head to the side to rest my temple on the top of her head, smiling softly as she whispered sweet words of encouragement and support. Erin just grinned at me as she stabbed a piece of sausage with her fork and lifted it to her lips. Spurred into motion by watching Erin eat and seeing how much food she, Julie, and I still had on our own plates, thanks to our lengthy discussion of the developments between Chris and me (Brody’s plate was long empty; the conversation clearly hadn’t hindered his ability to eat), I reached across my chest with my free hand to squeeze Julie’s hands where they wrapped around my arm. “Okay,” I said, pulling away and sitting back up in my own seat, “so, now that we’re all caught up to speed, how about we finish eating, yeah? At this rate it’ll be lunch time before we finish breakfast.” Erin just nodded and went back to her food and Julie rolled her eyes, but the way she nearly attacked her neglected egg sandwich showed just how hungry she was.

Another 10 minutes or so later, once all the plates were empty and Julie and Erin had excused themselves to the restroom, Brody looked over at me sheepishly as our server walked away with our dishes. “I'm sorry if I crossed a line.” I looked a little sternly over at him. “I know it wasn't really my news to share, but you know we all love you and just want you to be happy, like I told you at one-act, and I  _ know  _ you're happy.” I softened, then, because how could I not? He’d played it off well earlier, but at that point he just looked like an overgrown kid, blinking back at me with big eyes and hoping I’d forgive him for getting overly excited. It was clear then that what had seemed like a desire to tease and taunt was actually a desire to share his excitement. It didn’t make what he’d done, airing my private business like that and basically forcing me to share, okay, but it did make it easier to forgive. “I hope you know you don't have to worry about any of us judging you for being with someone, so I kind of thought the only reason you hadn't said anything was because you were afraid it would sound braggy or pretentious or whatever.” He shrugged, still looking chastened. “I don't mind bragging on your behalf.”

I rolled my eyes and somewhat begrudgingly told him, “It's okay. I didn't love Julie bursting my eardrum, but I don't mind them knowing, even if it’s a little sooner than I’d planned.” He grimaced, wrinkling his nose, and dropped his head to study the table. “But let’s keep it in the family from this point forward, yeah? It hasn’t even been a month, and I think we need to be a little farther in, a little more stable and settled, before I can deal with the public attention. I have a feeling a few million women are going to be pretty unhappy with me.” I pulled a face, lifting my eyebrows and pulling one corner of my mouth to the side in a grimace, when he looked up at me.

Brody laughed. “Fair point. I won't tell anyone else, you have my word.” He held up both hands in front of his chest as if to demonstrate that he was finished telling people, but I could see just from his face alone that he was being honest and that I could trust him. “And you know my parents aren't going to tell anyone. You have to break the news to those two though,” he nodded a little to the side and I turned just in time to see the restroom door closing behind Erin and Julie as they came back out into the restaurant..

I smiled. “I can handle that. Let's be honest, they'll be thrilled to be in on the secret.” I rolled my eyes a little to show that I was teasing, but Brody’s face went completely serious and sincere as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“And thrilled to know you've got someone who makes you happy,” he insisted, his voice quiet, “and probably willing to do anything to help you preserve that.” 

I sighed and nodded; that was dangerously close to a compliment and I didn’t do well with those. “Also that.”

“Seriously,” he told me, watching the girls approach out of the corner of his eye, “you've known how I felt about this for a while. I'm really, really happy for you. I think this is a very good thing, and I think he's very lucky.”

I wanted so, so badly to contradict him, to tell him that there was no universe in which Chris was the lucky one between the two of us, that I still wasn’t sure that he hadn’t lost his mind a little bit just because he was choosing to be with me, but instead I just smiled, lowered my head a little, and said, “Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> To all of you who have been following along and keeping up with me the past few months as I've been able to post a story or chapter every Friday, thank you SO much!! It's been incredible.
> 
> Unfortunately, the real world is throwing a lot of things my way over the next few weeks. So, I'm still writing when I can, but there's a decent chance that updates might slow down for a little while. I'm NOT going away, by any means, but I just wanted to let you guys all know that if there's not a post next Friday (or if I just kind of fall off that schedule altogether and end up posting randomly here and there whenever possible for month or two) that I'm not disappearing by any means, I've just got stuff taking up more of my time than had been the case for the last few months.


	3. Friends & Co-Workers

_ 3 months together (April, Year 2) _

A few years before my husband had died, I’d stopped eating lunch in the faculty workroom with my co-workers, opting instead to stay in my classroom and keep it open to students who didn’t feel comfortable going to the cafeteria. Probably not coincidentally, that was around the same time that I started ‘adopting’ kids as my own. And that was part of the reason I’d done it - I’d always attracted mostly the outsiders who didn’t quite fit with their peers ( _ The Island of Misfit Toys _ , Spencer had always called my classroom when we’d worked together), and I knew that oftentimes the last place my kids wanted to be was a crowded, small-town high school cafeteria. The other part of the reason was because I often found that my co-workers acted like high schoolers themselves, with their pettiness and complaining and gossip, and if that was going to be the case, I might as well be with the actual kids, where I felt like I was making a difference, or at least providing support.

After my husband had died, though, once I’d returned to work after what was considered a ‘normal’ mourning period (shorter than normal, really, because I didn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t working), a couple co-workers who I considered actual friends started pressuring me to come back to eating with them, claiming that I needed the adult interaction. I’d held off for the rest of that school year, but once we’d returned in the fall I’d started eating ‘with the grown-ups,’ as I explained it to my kids, a couple times a week.

The first day back from spring break was one of those ‘with the grown-ups’ days. I hadn’t planned it that way. If anything I had been looking forward to sitting back at my desk, just kind of basking in the glow of my kids’ joy at seeing one another again after nine days. But Jen and Maggie, two of the teacher friends who had made it their goal to keep me from locking myself away in my classroom, had stopped by my room before any of the kids had managed to make it there and had all but demanded I come with them. I didn’t want to argue, and I figured that as soon as things got obnoxious I could just tune them out and recede into my memories of the past week - and they were very, very good memories.

It wasn’t as bad as it could sometimes be. Coming just off of spring break, the main topic of conversation was what everyone had done with their time off. I’d only half-listened to most of their stories, less interested in Jen’s cruise with her entire family than I was in Maggie’s girls’ week at the beach with some of her college friends or our friend Rachel’s five-day hike along a portion of the Appalachian Trail with her husband. And then there was Brandi, who I would have put on mute, if I could have. 

Brandi and I, well, there’s never been any love lost between the two of us. The first time I’d met her, at a department barbecue at Jen’s house to say goodbye to Chelsea, who was moving on to her district-level job, and welcome Brandi into the fold, I’d thought she tried too hard, but I also tried not to hold it against her, knowing that I would also probably be intimidated trying to work my way into an already formed, fairly tight-knit group. But it only got worse from there, with her propensity for one-upmanship becoming clear quite early on and her need to always be right or outdo everyone else, both professionally and personally, driving me away. I could tolerate her, and be polite and professional, but I would never call us friends. I was fine with that, but I don’t know that she was, if the way she occasionally extended half-assed but obvious olive branches then got bitter when I didn’t shower her in gratitude for her ‘kindness’ was any indication. I don’t think she actually cared about truly being friends at all, I think it was more about winning, but I wasn’t even playing the game. Of all the things I’d learned over the past year and a half, one of them was that I didn’t have time to make time in my life for games. 

Brandi had just finished regaling us all with her story about being the best mother in the world because she took her three-year-old to Disney World over the break when Jen nudged my left elbow with her right to draw me out of my daze and asked, “What about you, what did you do for spring break?”

The thing was, none of them knew about Chris and me. It had been about three months since we’d started dating, officially, and up to that point I’d still been very selective about who I’d told. Aside from Ashley and Spencer, and the handful of kids who knew, the only other person on my end who knew that there was more between us than friendship was my friend Chelsea. She was my best friend in Virginia, and the fact that she didn’t work in the school anymore actually kind of helped, because it meant that I never worried about something accidentally slipping out at work. But I knew that, if the relationship was going to last, and  _ god  _ I hoped it was going to last, I was going to end up telling more people eventually. Initially I’d held out because I was afraid that the more people I told - not even about Chris, specifically, but just about the fact that I was in a relationship - the more I would feel like I had to defend myself and my life, and I was scared that in turn would make me begin to question myself and whether I was doing the right thing by moving on, or whether I was disrespecting or doing wrong by my husband. But over the previous week and a half, spent in Massachusetts with Chris, those fears had been seriously diminished. We’d spent nine days straight together, our longest stretch yet, and it had been equal parts touristy and domestic, family-oriented and romantic. We’d even shared our first  _ I love you _ s, and while I’d had a few passing thoughts here and there about how surprising it was that I felt so comfortable and at ease being with him - and his family - like that, I hadn’t had any major fear or anxiety. And all that made me feel like maybe I was at a point where I was ready to start sharing a little more, if only so that I wouldn’t keep feeling like I had this huge secret from the people I spent most of my time with.

“I umm,” I pushed a piece of broccoli around my lunch container with my fork, “I went to Boston.” I kept my eyes down as I waited for their responses. 

“Ohh, what did you do there?” Maggie asked. “Did you go by yourself?” Her voice was pure curiosity, interest without a hint of accusation. Her free spirit and accepting nature were part of the reason I felt more comfortable sharing my news with her around.

I kept my eyes down. “I went to visit someone up there,” I took a deep breath, steeled myself against the butterflies in my stomach and the way my heart pounded and my hands trembled, “my boyfriend.”

Rachel smacked both hands forcefully on the table top directly across from Jen and me. “Your what?” she shrieked. 

“You never told us you had a boyfriend!” Maggie accused from my right, at what I suppose could be considered the head of the table. 

“Yeah,” Jen bumped my elbow again, “how have we never known this?

I sighed and busied myself packing my lunch container and fork back into my lunch bag then finally looked up, looking first at Jen, then over to Maggie, and finally directly across the table at Rachel, stopping there and not looking toward the other end of the table, opposite Maggie, where Brandi sat. While I wasn’t going to go out of my way to exclude her from hearing my news, it wasn’t  _ for  _ her. “We've just been, kind of,” I shrugged, “trying to stay quiet about it, not draw attention.”

Brandi scoffed and I just bit the inside of my cheek and looked back down at the table, steeling myself when I heard her start to speak. “Why, what's the big deal, are you dating Batman or something?” I didn’t need to see her to pick up on just how sarcastic that comment was. I assumed there was probably a dig in there about my ‘secret’ boyfriend being less secret and more imaginary.

“No,” I shook my head slowly, still avoiding eye contact not only with her, but also with Maggie, who I knew was probably scowling at Brandi’s comment out of solidarity. I loved her for being my go-to person to vent to about Brandi, but I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face if I saw hers. Instead I leaned to the side to fish my phone out of the outer pocket of my lunch bag where it sat on the floor by my feet, “Not Batman.” I pulled up the folder I’d made for pictures of Chris and me - I knew it wasn’t safe to keep them in my normal photo gallery - and opened the first picture, one that Victoria had taken just before we’d left my house to go meet Chris’s friend at his hotel and wait for our car to ride to the premiere together. I’d gone to tuck myself into his side for a typical side-by-side, half-hug pose, but before I had a chance to wrap my arm around his waist, he’d sidestepped so that he was directly behind me, leaning down to rest his chin on my shoulder and winding his arms around my waist to pull me snugly back against him. 

“No.” Jen’s eyes grew big as she looked from the phone back up to me and I nodded for her to swipe again, moving to the second picture, nearly identical to the first except that my eyes were squeezed shut and his lips were pressed to my cheek. “No way.” She kept swiping. “I knew you guys had kept talking, become friends or whatever, but you're dating? Since when?”

“January.” I smiled up at Rachel when she stopped behind my chair on her way to put her unfinished lunch in the fridge. “We went to D.C. together for the inauguration, and, yeah.” I could feel myself starting to blush, so I looked back down at the table and watched my fingertip trace figure eights over the wood as Jen held the phone up between the three of us where Rachel could see it as she kept scrolling through the pictures.

Rachel rested her hand gently on my shoulder. “You look so happy. So I take it that means he's good to you?”

I bit my lip and looked first to my right at Maggie, who was staring at us, wide-eyed and impatient, then back up at Rachel. “I am.” I smiled and she squeezed my shoulder. “And he is.”

Jen went through the rest of the photos as Rachel watched from where she stood between us, from the premiere weekend to a few goofy selfies of the two of us and Millie when he’d visited in March to, finally, the many that I’d taken the previous week - with him, with his family, with Dodger, at his and his mom’s houses and around his small suburb and some of the places he’d taken me to visit in Boston. Finally they got to the end and Jen moved to hand the phone back to me, but Maggie’s hand shot between us and snatched it from her grip. I watched as she closed the last picture, one of us in his car, him practically hauling me across the center console with one arm to hug me close while his other arm stretched out in front of us to snap the picture as he pressed his cheek to mine and grinned, mouth and eyes wide, and went back to the first to scroll through them all in order.

Rachel and Jen went back to the business of cleaning up the remnants of their lunches and I watched Maggie as she scrolled through the pictures, her eyes growing wider with each one. Finally, after what I guessed must have been about half the folder, she set the phone down on the table in front of her, screen up. “I cannot  _ freaking _ believe my friend is dating Captain  _ freaking _ America.” She looked down like she was going to pick the phone up again then stopped and gasped, her eyes shooting up to mine, “Oh my god, what's the sex like?”

“MAGGIE!” Rachel, who had settled back into her chair and was looking at her own phone, smacked her on the arm.

“You can't ask that!” Jen added. I only dropped my head and laughed.

Maggie scoffed. “Oh come on, you know we were all thinking it!”

Jen stammered for a second then finally said, her cheeks glowing, “But you can't  _ ask _ it!”

We all laughed then, everyone except Brandi. “It's okay,” I assured Jen, rolling my eyes a little, good-naturedly, then turning to smile at Maggie before dropping my eyes back to my hands, watching them wring a bit on top of the table, “But I couldn't tell you.” I shrugged and looked back up, “I don't know.”

Jen’s hand dropped heavy on my forearm. “Okay wait, you've been dating  _ Chris. Evans. _ ” She shook my arm a little as she said each name. “America's Ass. For ... three months? Yeah, three months now, and you haven't slept together?”

“Nope.” I shook my head.

“Why?” She asked, incredulous, “ _ How _ ?” I had to laugh a little because, well, obviously I could see where she was coming from.

“Okay,” Rachel put down her phone and held up her hands, ready to be the voice of reason in the room, “to be fair, it's not like they get to see each other all that often.” I shot her a smile of gratitude.

“Okay,” Maggie drawled, “but to be  _ more _ fair, she just spent all of spring break with him, at his  _ home _ .” 

“It's not that,” I told them, shaking my head then shrugging, “I mean, yeah, it's probably a factor, things might be different if we saw each other more frequently, but that's not really the reason.” I paused and looked down as I picked at one thumbnail with the other, “I'm just not ready.”

Maggie made a sound that sounded almost like a whimper, “Girl. How can you not be ready for  _ that _ ?”

Rachel rolled her eyes and smacked Maggie again, “What she  _ means  _ to say” she sent a dirty look Maggie’s way, “is not ready how? Are you unsure about the relationship?”

“No,” I answered easily, “it's kind of just the opposite, actually. Our relationship is going really, really well, even if it's not going super quickly” I felt myself smiling and drew my bottom lip between my teeth. “It took me six months of knowing him, four months of being his friend, and almost two months of knowing he wanted to be more than that, before I felt like I could actually handle being in a relationship at all.” Jen reached for my hand and pulled it toward her so I had to stop picking at my nail. “I'm afraid if we move too fast, physically, I'll mess it up somehow.” My smile faltered a little and I focused directly across the table at Rachel as I went on, “I still have moments of massive anxiety and even PTSD, and I'm not sure that adding sex into that mix is anything other than a recipe for disaster. I mean, don't get me wrong, I  _ want  _ to.” My eyes grew wide and I tilted my head to one side, even going so far as to lift my eyebrows as I did. “I mean, have you  _ seen  _ him?” My friends laughed. “But I also don't want to screw up the relationship part, and if we sleep together and then I completely freak out or something, I don't know what that would do to us.”

Brandi had been surprisingly quiet up to that point, but I heard her scoff and mutter something that sounded like, “PTSD.”

Maggie sent a nasty look in Brandi’s direction and Jen spoke quickly, redirecting the energy of the conversation. “So, and feel free to tell me if it's none of my business, but how has he handled that?”

I smiled down at my lap and when I spoke my voice was soft. “He's been amazing. He's absolutely respectful and has never pushed at all.” I looked up then, looking each of my friends in the eye in turn and speaking more directly. “I'm totally in control of everything, physically.”

“And he hasn't complained?” Maggie asked.

I shook my head. “Nope. Not once.” I chuckled a little as I shrugged. “I've actually been kind of surprised by just how understanding he is about it. Not because I would expect less from him, but because in general, it feels like I'm asking a lot, waiting-wise. I mean, he  _ is  _ a guy, and while we haven’t yet delved into his full sexual history in detail, I’ve got a sneaking feeling he doesn’t usually have to work very hard or wait very long for it.” Rachel’s eyes went wide and she looked at me like she was ready to contradict and reassure me, so I only wiggled my eyebrows and winked. I wasn’t looking for some kind of platitudes, I was just stating facts; he was both one of the most famous and most gorgeous men men walking the planet at the moment, and while either one of those things alone would have all but assured him a spot in nearly any bed he wanted to be in, he had both going for him (and it didn’t hurt that the fame was actually hard-earned and well-deserved thanks to his talent, work ethic, and decency). I didn’t take it lightly that he was willing to wait for me the way that he was. 

And I was about to explain that when Rachel continued to look at me like she thought I might need a pep talk, but Brandi murmured something under her breath from the other end of the table. I couldn’t understand what she said, but it distracted me just enough that Rachel was able to go on before I could convince her that she didn’t need to. “I don't think you're asking too much, none of us have gone through what you have,” Jen reached for my hand under the table, “and neither has he, so no one else has a right to judge how you handle your grief and trauma.”

I heard a noise from Brandi’s end of the table, and when I turned in her direction I caught the tail-end of a pretty serious eye-roll. The thing is, I tried so hard by that point to just not engage with her at all. I knew exactly how every conversation with her would end, and I also knew that she went out of her way to push my buttons. She’d actually spent most of a lunch period, when we all had cafeteria duty (meaning I couldn’t have escaped if I’d tried), going on about how much she couldn’t stand Chris as an actor and celebrity. That was well before I’d ever met him, let alone started a relationship with him, but the conversation had started because I was using  _ Captain America: The First Avenger  _ to teach the parts of the hero’s journey and Rachel, Jen, and Maggie had teased me about my crush on both Chris and Steve Rogers. I had no doubt that Brandi’s strong dislike of his acting was based as much on me liking him as anything else. (Otherwise her arguments were largely based on his laugh and his eyebrows, which just didn’t seem to add up.)

Even though I knew I was being baited, I finally gave in and took the bait. I made my voice as soft and sweet as I could when I asked, “Sorry, did you say something?”

Brandi shrugged and rolled her eyes again, “I'm just saying, it's not like he's not getting any.”

I furrowed my brow and cocked my head a little to one side, “What do you mean?” Jen squeezed my hand where she still held it under the table. 

“I  _ mean _ ,” she emphasized the word ‘mean,’ even throwing in a little head wobble for added snarkiness, “he may not be getting it from you, but he's getting some somewhere.”

I knew what she was doing. I knew she was just trying to hurt me. Knowing that was the case didn’t make it hurt any less. “I mean,” I cleared my throat to try to clear any sign of doubt or insecurity from my voice, “I don't …” God, I hated that she was able to get to me, not because I doubted Chris, but because it was like she was digging her thumb right into the wound of my own anxiety and insecurities about my worth in the relationship - in any relationship, really, but especially with him.

“Look,” Brandi went on, and just in that one word alone she sounded far too satisfied, considering the pain that was probably visible on my face, “he's some Hollywood big-shot actor who has women falling all over themselves for him. He's not holding out for  _ you _ .” The way she said it hurt more than it should have, knowing that was the only reason she was doing it. “No one who is willing to strip naked and cover himself in whipped cream is going to be willing to sit around being celibate for months because his ‘girlfriend’” - air quotes and everything - “won't give it up.”

“That's not fair,” Maggie cut in, louder than necessary, “that was a movie, a job. It was his  _ first  _ movie. Actors do a lot of things to get their careers started.”

I took a deep breath then and reminded myself that it didn’t matter what Brandi said or what she thought or did. It came as no surprise to me that she was trying to bring me down, it’s just what she did, and I’d stopped caring what she thought of me a long time before that. She had problems with me for reasons I didn’t fully understand, but my kids loved me, my friends sitting in that room loved me and were willing to stand up for me, and, most importantly at the moment, Chris loved me. The only thing I needed on top of those things was for  _ me  _ to love me, and while she was going to try her damndest to make sure that didn’t happen, I couldn’t let her. So I exhaled slowly, put on my best  _ fuck off  _ smile, and told her, “Hey, you're entitled to your own opinion. If that's what you believe, it's what you believe.” I looked her straight in the eyes, “It's not what I believe, though.”

“Then you're fooling yourself,” she said just before she stood up to throw her fast food packaging into the trash.

“Maybe.” I conceded, and she turned her head to look at me from over her shoulder. “But I trust him. And besides, even if I didn't trust him just because of who he is and the way he treats me, what does he have to gain? Like you said, he's not really getting anything from me, and he's spending a lot of time and money flying back and forth like every month to visit. So aside from actually caring about me, I don't see what reason he has to be doing this.” And while I hadn’t for a second entertained the possibility that she might be right about what she was suggesting - even when I doubted myself, I never doubted him - it still felt really good to hear myself say that out loud.

The bell rang to end the lunch period and Jen and Maggie, who both had classes during the next period, grabbed their own lunch bags and cell phones and stood from the table. Brandi continued to practically snarl at me from where she stood by the door. “I mean hey, you do you. Ignorance is bliss after all,” she said just before she left the room.

Jen rested her hand on my shoulder and squeezed, smiling at me, before she left the room, and as Maggie crossed behind me she wrapped one arm around my shoulders and bent down for a half-hug, whispering in my ear, “But when you  _ do  _ have sex with him, you'll tell me what it was like, right?” My cheeks flared with heat and I laughed, a little embarrassed. “Seriously though,” she went on as she stood, “I'm happy for you.” She kissed the top of my head lightly before heading off to meet her freshmen at her classroom door.

Rachel and I were both fortunate enough to have our planning periods right after lunch, so on the days I did eat with the rest of the department in the faculty workroom, she and I usually hung around for a few minutes after the bell waiting for the halls to clear. It may have been in those few quiet moments each day that we’d grown to be as close as we were. Once we were alone and the workroom door was closed, only slightly muffling the sounds of a hall full of teenagers stampeding toward their next classes, Rachel rose from her chair and rounded the corner of the table to sit in the seat Maggie had been in and reached for my hand on top of the table. “Wow,” she breathed, shaking her head, “I am  _ so  _ sorry about that.” 

I shrugged. “We all know she says bitchy things sometimes. And we all know she really doesn't like me. I'm used to it.”

She scoffed, “No, she doesn't say bitchy things sometimes. She  _ is  _ a bitch.” My eyes grew wide and I regarded her closely for a second, making her blush a bit and drop her chin to her chest. Rachel was a wonderful friend, probably my best still at the school, but while she always supported me when Brandi was out of line, she was also the most level-headed and civil of all of us, so to hear her say that was surprising. “I'm just sorry she's ruining this for you,” she finally added once I hooked my thumb over her hand and pressed to let her know I wasn’t judging her for her previous harshness.

“Oh sweetie,” I turned more directly toward her and shook my head, my eyes wide and earnest, “she isn't ruining  _ anything  _ for me. She can't ruin this, no matter how hard she tries.” And I meant that. Because no matter how insecure or self-conscious I ever got about myself and my own place in our relationship, there hadn’t been a second since it had started that I hadn’t cherished, that I hadn’t thanked every possible higher power that he was a part of my life. She could make me feel like shit about myself, but not even she could take  _ that _ away from me.

Rachel looked down at my phone, still resting at the corner of the table where Maggie had left it, then pushed it across the table to me. “You really do seem really happy.” I unlocked the phone and smiled at the picture still on the screen, one of me on his lap at his mom’s kitchen table, my head thrown back in laughter and a wide, joyful smile on his face as his hands tickled my sides, before closing out the photo and the folder it was in and locking the phone again, leaning down to put it into the outer pocket of my lunch bag. “It must be surreal, huh?” Rachel added.

“What's that?” I asked as I sat back upright.

“I don't know,” she shrugged, “it's just, like, you're living every teenage girl's fantasy, you know?  _ Actually  _ dating your celebrity crush.”

I tilted my head a little to the side and looked up at the ceiling as I thought about her question. Finally I told her, “I know what you mean, but it's not like that at all. Don't get me wrong, he absolutely was my celebrity crush. I mean, you've seen my classroom.” I laughed, giving her permission to do the same. After only a couple seconds, though, I took a deep steadying breath and went on. “But, when I met him, the  _ way  _ I met him, I honestly couldn't appreciate that I was meeting Captain America, or Johnny Storm, or Ransom Thrombey, or just Chris Evans the movie star in general, you know?”

She tried to smile, because it was just in her nature to care and comfort, but her furrowed brow kept it from carrying much weight. “Do you ever wish you'd met him at a different time, when you could appreciate it? Like either before everything happened,” she threw her hand up, palm out to me, and widened her eyes, “not that you would have left your husband or anything, but just to meet your idol when you could actually appreciate it? And then, you know, again later when you would start your relationship? Or maybe longer after your husband died, when you were in a different mental state?” I’d never had that conversation with anyone before (probably because so few people knew about our relationship), but that didn’t mean I’d never thought about that very thing. I’d thought about it many times, actually, starting with any time anyone referred to Chris as ‘Captain America,’ even if they weren’t talking about him as my partner. And because I’d thought so much about it, I was already prepared and equipped with an answer.

“No,” I told her, “I don't. Because if I'd met him at a point in my life when I could have really appreciated him as my celebrity crush, I don't think I would have appreciated him as 'Chris,' and that's so much better. He was exactly what I needed when he came into my life, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. I hate the reasons that led to us meeting, but I don't think we'd have what we have now if it had happened any other way, and I wouldn't trade this for meeting a million fictional superheroes.”


	4. Mom; Part I

_ 9 months together (October, Year 2) _

I reclined on the couch, my shoulders pressing into the cushions lining the back and my legs stretched long on the chaise in front of me. I’d spent the morning and early afternoon at the gym then running all my errands for the week, and when it had come time for my video call with Chris I’d made myself as comfortable as possible with my laptop on a pillow on my thighs. We’d been talking for about 20 minutes and my head was thrown back as I laughed so hard I could barely breathe, Chris just finishing up a story about Scott that included an extremely awkward blind date and a misunderstanding about exactly what Scott had meant when he told the man he enjoyed kickball. I wiped a few stray tears from under my eyes and sighed, my eyes finally refocusing on the screen. Chris had managed to pull himself together more quickly than I had, and he was smiling softly back at me through the camera. His eyes flicked down for a moment and he cleared his throat just a bit then finally spoke. 

“So. Thanksgiving.”

I squinted and darted my eyes side-to-side, confused. That had come completely out of nowhere and had absolutely nothing to do with what we’d been talking about. “Easter,” I shot back.

He furrowed his brow, “What?”

“I don't know,” I shrugged, “I thought we were randomly naming holidays.”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Cute, smart ass.”

I’d gone through waves with my comfort level with him. At first, until the day he’d held and comforted me in my living room while I truly allowed myself to mourn everything I’d lost, I’d done my best to be friendly but professional, thinking we were nothing more than two people who were working together temporarily. Then I’d realized he thought of us as friends, and over time I eased into being more open, more ‘myself’ with him. I’d let him see some of my snark and my sarcasm, the sassy, self-deprecating, passionate,  _ real _ me that was too much for a lot of people. Then we’d started dating, and I found myself calibrating again, thinking more carefully about my words and my actions before I said or acted on them. It was one thing for him to have a friend who made fun of herself relentlessly, and felt too strongly about everything from sports to politics to education policy, and responded with sarcasm at least 50% of the time. I was afraid it would be another thing altogether to have a girlfriend who did the same. But it had been nine months, and aside from becoming more affectionate and more overt in his displays of said affection, Chris hadn’t changed at all in the way he treated me or acted with me. If anything, he’d opened up even more. And the fact that he was so comfortable, so open, being his goofy, sometimes nerdy, often snarky, just a little bit crass self encouraged me to do the same. So while I’d never exactly hidden myself, I’d tempered some of the parts that often turned off others, but I’d been doing less and less of that over the past several months and had pretty much become confident enough to be my whole self with him. Mostly.

“You love me.” I winked.

Chris rolled his eyes and scoffed at my sassy insistence. “For some reason.”

I let my face fall and when I spoke it was deadpan, almost monotone. “Excuse me?”

His eyes grew wide and panicked and he shook his head frantically, his hands flying up in front of his chest, palms out toward me. “Oh shit baby, I'm sorry, I was joking. I mean, you’ve said it before, and it was funny then, and I just, I thought it was obvious.” He let his hands come in, clasped, over the center of his chest. 

“I know.” I grinned, wide and cheeky. “It was.”

He gasped and drew his eyebrows down and together. “Man, you really are a brat.”

I just stuck my tongue out at him before redirecting him back to his original point. “Anyway, Thanksgiving?”

He pretended to glare at me for a second then shook his head. “Right. Thanksgiving. So we both agreed it's too stressful and exhausting for you to make some big trip when you only have a few days off before you have to go back to school.”

“Yeah,” the word came out hesitant, wary. We’d decided almost two months earlier, when Chris had come to spend several days with me over Labor Day weekend and into my first week of school, that he would come spend Thanksgiving with me. I had no real desire to go home, and Chelsea had made it very clear weeks earlier that she expected me to spend the holiday with her and her family as I’d done the year before. Chris had been the one to say that, if I wanted, he’d like to be there with me. I’d made it clear that I couldn’t think of anything that would make me happier. But for him to bring it up again like that, well, it worried me. I knew, if he was going to tell me he couldn’t make it after all, that there would be a legitimate reason and I couldn’t be mad at him for it. It would still be disappointing as hell.

Unsurprisingly, Chris picked up on my fear. “No no,” he let his eyes fall closed and shook his head quickly, “it's not like that. I'm  _ thrilled  _ to be coming to hang out with you and your friends. I really am. Chelsea and AJ sound awesome,” he grinned, “and I'd go just about anywhere if it meant getting to spend the time with you. But, you have like two weeks off for Christmas, right?” He lifted one eyebrow and looked into his camera expectantly.

I nodded. “Yeah. We finish up a week before Christmas Eve and we go back on the third of January.”

“So,” he drawled, dragging the word out almost into two syllables, “is two weeks long enough to make a trip to Massachusetts worthwhile?” He’d brought his hand up to just under his mouth as he spoke, and when he finished he let his fingertips tap one at a time on his bottom lip, both eyebrows arched by that point.

“Seriously?” My voice came out a little high pitched and I’m sure he could see the happy surprise written all over my face, because he dropped his hand and his lips spread wide into a grin.

“Seriously.” 

“I -,” I almost stuttered, “yeah! Of course! I would love that so, so much.” I had to stop for a second, blinking at him as I collected my thoughts. I’d definitely thought about how much I’d love to spend Christmas with him. But I wasn’t going to ask him to come to Virginia for yet another major holiday, and I certainly wasn’t going to invite myself to go spend it with him in New England. 

Chris initiated almost all of our firsts (keyword being  _ almost _ …) - he’d been the one to make it clear that his feelings were more than friendly, before I was even thinking along those lines, he was the one who always offered up the dates to come visit or for us to go somewhere together, and he’d been the first to say  _ I love you _ \- but that didn’t mean that I didn’t want it all just as much as he did. Sometimes I wondered if I might feel even more than he did - not because I didn’t have faith in his love for me, but because I felt so strongly. Honestly, sometimes I was scared to be too much for him, the way I was for nearly everyone else. Even as that fear subsided bit by bit the longer we were together, there was still a fair amount of it there. That’s just who I was. And suddenly, in the midst of my excitement, a bit of that fear reared its head. “Is your family good with that?” I asked, far more subdued than before. “I'm already stealing you away for Thanksgiving, I don't want to impose on an Evans family Christmas.”

“Are you kidding me?” His voice went high and he rolled his eyes and threw one hand up in the air over his head. “The kids have been asking about you non-stop for weeks now. I'm actually a little worried I'm gonna end up with a stowaway in my suitcase when I come down.” The face he made, his eyes and nose crinkled and his eyebrows wiggling, made me giggle. “And Ma has been  _ incredibly  _ subtle with her hints that she expects me to get you up here. Your favorite Disney princess  _ is  _ Belle, right? 'Cause I think she's already ordered your ornament.” He scrunched his face in a fake grimace, pretending that he was delivering bad news. If he’d had  _ any  _ doubts about how happy that information would make me, then clearly I hadn’t been communicating myself very well.

“Well,” I sighed, playing along with his charade for just a second, “in that case, I guess I have to start looking at flights as soon as we get off the phone.” I couldn’t keep up the game, biting my lip to try to cover the smile that was taking over my face.

“For that Friday evening, yeah?” The silliness had disappeared from his face, his expression all hopeful sincerity. “One extra night I get to have you in my bed.”

“Well.” I blinked heavily and pushed my head back into the cushions behind me, widening my eyes and raising my eyebrows. “That's ... presumptuous.”

“No,” he practically squeaked, “that's not, I just mean,” he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. The first time we’d slept together had been Labor Day weekend, almost two months earlier. It had been the first night he’d been in town, not even 12 hours after I’d picked him up at the airport, because I couldn’t wait any longer. And the next morning, he’d told me he didn’t want me to think he expected anything from me just because we’d had sex. I never thought that, but I loved him even more for saying it. Over the next few days before he had to leave again, well, we made good use of our time, but true to his word, he’d never pushed, never had any expectations. He’d been back once since then, just for a long weekend, and we’d continued acting like the newly intimate couple that we were. I had absolutely no intention of changing that over Thanksgiving or Christmas, any more than I believed he’d meant anything out of line or disrespectful by what he’d said. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t still give him a hard time. 

“Shit,” he practically spat once he looked back at his screen and saw the smirk I wore. “You're fuckin' with me again, aren't you?”

“Look who's catching on.”

“You know,” he narrowed his eyes and pointed at the camera, “I can't decide whether you're funny or just plain mean.” I batted my eyes and blew him a kiss. “Anyway,” he rolled his eyes, but I could see the affection on his face, “what about your family? Are they going to be upset when you tell them you're coming here?” He resituated, shifting in his chair and pushing the computer a little farther away from him on top of his kitchen table, leaning in on his elbows, and I took advantage of his distraction to shift a little myself, uneasy, and think about exactly how to answer his question.

I realized he was looking at me expectantly and I stammered, “I'll, uh, I'll just tell them I can't make it.” I shrugged, “I'll tell them I'm too busy or have things I need to do around here or something.”

His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed and he tilted his head a little to the side. “Why would you lie instead of just telling them you're coming up here?”

“Well,” I sighed; I had a feeling the conversation wasn’t going to end as well as it had started,    
“telling them I'm coming up there would lead to me having to explain to them exactly  _ why  _ I'm coming up there,” I drew my bottom lip between my teeth just for a second and dropped my eyes to watch my fingers trail over my keyboard, “who you are to me, what we have.”

“Wait, you still haven't told them about me?”

I didn’t look at the screen. I couldn’t. I could tell he was, well, maybe not angry, but definitely hurt, confused, frustrated. I didn’t want to see that on his face knowing that I’d put it there. “I mean, they know about  _ you _ , in that you exist, and that we worked together. I sent them all those copies of the movie that you signed for them.” I finally looked up and flinched a little at the expression that I’d expected, but that I still hated to see. “But they don't know about  _ us _ .”

He looked baffled, like the things I was saying didn’t make any sense. And to him, I supposed, they probably didn’t. “So what did you tell them when you came up here in the spring? Or when we went to Disney, or when you visited me in L.A.?” With each question I watched his neck and shoulders tense a little more.

I shrank into the couch as much as I could. “Nothing.”

He blinked and his mouth fell open a little as he pushed back, away from his computer, putting distance between himself and the image of me and jolting a little when he hit the back of the chair. “That's a lot to reduce to 'nothing.'”

I sighed as I dropped my head, more than a little ashamed and going into defense mode. “You know that's not what I'm doing. I just, I don't really tell them things. In general. Every time I talk to my mom, it's 90% me listening to her complain about anything and everything, always throwing in at least one good passive aggressive dig at me for something or other, then seven percent me attempting to cut in and respond to things she's saying, and finally, three percent me actually conveying information to her.”

“And this isn't worthy of being in the three percent?” He crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Chris.” My voice cracked and I swallowed hard, “You know better than that. But ... you don't understand what it's like, with my mom and me. Or my brother.” He knew that I didn’t have a good relationship with most of my family, nothing like the one he had with his own. I’d told him that much back in May and had reiterated the point a few times since then. But I hadn’t really given him the details. I just … couldn’t.

He scoffed then, the force of it making his head bob as he did. “Maybe I'd understand if you actually told me more.” I felt myself flinch, my face contorting almost as if I’d been slapped. “Look, I know I said I'd respect whatever it is you have going on with your family. And I am, I do. But at some point, I'm going to get tired of feeling like a secret.

My eyes went wide and my eyebrows lifted. “Wow.”

He shook his head, “Don't get anything twisted. That's not an ultimatum, okay? I'm not threatening anything. I'm not going  _ anywhere.  _ But,” another sigh, “okay, I know we're keeping things quiet in general; I don't really talk about you, at least not specifics or anything that would allow anyone to identify you, with people I work with or the press or anything like that. But the important people in my life, my actual friends, my  _ family  _ of all people, they know who you are, what you mean to me, there's no secrecy there, nothing being hidden. Hell, aside from me, nobody was happier than my mom when you let me in, because she'd known how I felt about you from the very beginning. And even the other stuff, the press and social media and stuff, I  _ thought  _ that was a mutual decision, that we both thought it was for the best, mainly to protect you. But hey,” his hands flew up in a gesture almost of surrender, “I'll change it in a heartbeat the second you tell me you want to be more public.”

“Yeah, we're in agreement on the media and social media stuff.” I sat up straight and moved the computer off my lap onto the arm of the couch, pulling my knees up to my chest, “But what you don't seem to get, you said you told the  _ important  _ people in your life. For you, that means family. And that's awesome. Truly. But that's not my life. I don't have your family.” God, that was not how the conversation was supposed to go. It had started so well, light-hearted and fun, followed by his sweet invitation. I almost got whiplash thinking about how quickly and drastically it had changed.

“No,” He shook his head slowly, “I know that. And I know that whatever you do have going on with them is complicated. I get it, though I do still wish you'd let me in a bit more on that front. But even complicated, they're still your family, which by default makes them important, good or bad. So unless you're cutting yourself off from them altogether, which again, I don't know, because you've barely told me anything on this front, it seems like a relationship that is important to you is something that would be shared.”

I sighed, more of a huff, really. “You're acting like I don’t tell you anything, but -’

“No,” he cut me off, “I said you've  _ barely  _ told me anything. I know that your brother is a dick with a decent mix of at least a little bit of sexism, racism, homophobia, and all the other fun things on the ‘Right Wing Asshole’ checklist,” all very true, and then some. “I know that your mom is codependent and wants you to come home so you can be her support system and that she's super negative and passive aggressive all the time.” Also an understatement, if anything. “I know that you adore your grandparents and your niece, and that your brother has managed to enforce a distance between you and the other kids. But I don't know any of the specifics. I don't know the true dynamics of any of these relationships. I don't know what your mom's version of 'codependent' looks like or exactly how that affected you. Or how  _ any _ of it really affected you, emotionally. Because on the rare occasion I manage to get you to talk about it, you just kind of repeat different versions of the same few facts over and over again without including yourself or your feelings in there at all. Like it or not, they and their influence is part of you, so you may not be close with them, but they are still part of your world. But as long as you stay so closed off to me about them, and as long as you keep withholding from them the fact that I even exist outside their tv screens, you're trying to keep two totally separate worlds, and I don't know how long that's going to work.” He didn’t look angry or upset or even smug. He just looked … tired. 

And I responded in the worst possible way. “Don't you think that's a little hypocritical, coming from someone who has a personal self and a whole other persona that he shares with the public?” Leave it to me to become defensive. I’d never been good at arguing, not about personal things anyway. Give me a political or literary debate and I could go all day. But involve feelings, emotions,  _ real  _ stuff, and I couldn’t do it. My two settings were to shut down, close everything up inside so that I didn’t have to deal with the confrontation of telling someone else they’d hurt me, therefore making myself that much more exposed and vulnerable, or to go on the defensive like an animal backed into a corner. The first option wouldn’t really work in the situation I found myself in with Chris, so defensiveness it was. I hated myself a little for it.

He sighed and shook his head, his eyes falling closed as he did. If he’d been tired before, he’d moved on to exhaustion. “If that's how you want to look at it. But let me ask you something, if you're equating the two, which of those two worlds do I fit into for you? Am I part of the personal world or part of the fake persona you show off to the rest of the world? Because I know you're not making your family part of your public persona, so I'm not sure if I love where that leaves me.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck  _ fuck _ . I was messing everything up, sabotaging the best thing that had happened to me in years, decades even. “I'm not, I didn't say …”

He finally leaned back up to the table, and even with the hundreds of miles between us it felt like he was actually closing some of the distance. “Look, baby, this isn't how I wanted this conversation to go. And this certainly isn't how I want to leave it, but I'm gonna be late for a conference call as it is, so I really have to get going.” I’d known about the call with Mark and Joe and a few freshmen senators and a quick glance at the clock told me that he really should have gone already. “Just, just know a few things,” he leaned in even closer, crossing his forearms on the table and resting his weight on them, his face open and sincere, “I want you to come up here for Christmas. I want that more than anything. I respect that I probably won't fully understand everything going on with you and your family, and I respect your right to share with me only what you're comfortable sharing.  _ But,  _ I can only be there for you in as much as you let me in. And as long as you're keeping me a secret from even the people in your personal world, you haven't let me all the way in. I can't make you tell your mom about us, hell I don't  _ want  _ to  _ make  _ you do anything. But I do think you should.” He glanced down at his watch, “And the last thing I want to say before I  _ really  _ have to go is that if it doesn't go well, if it all goes completely to shit, you've got a whole clan of Evanses who would be more than happy to take over any and all family duties when it comes to you.” He smiled, small and tentative, but genuine. “Just think about all those things, and maybe we can continue this later?”

I just nodded. “Alright,” he said around a sigh, sounding a little defeated. “I love you, you know that.” He looked at me through the screen from under knitted brows and I nodded again. “I'm kinda frustrated and I'm forcing you to have an uncomfortable conversation, but god I love ya.”

“I love you too,” I promised. “You should go.”

He dropped his head a little then nodded. “Yeah. Have a good rest of your day, okay?”

“Yeah. You too.”

***

“Honestly?”

It had been about an hour since Chris and I had ended our video call, and for about the past 30 minutes or so I’d been on the phone with Ashley. (I’d spent the first 30 minutes stewing.) I’d filled her in on our entire conversation, trying not to embellish things in my favor but probably doing so anyway. Chalk it up to human nature.

“Honestly,” I answered her. I’d called her to vent, but she’d never been one to just sit back and listen without giving her own two cents.

I heard her breath, a sharp exhale into the phone, then, “He's right, you're wrong.”

I blinked heavily. “Wow. Thanks, best friend.”

“Yeah, best friend. That means I love you enough to be honest with you, even when you don't want to hear it.”

I couldn’t be mad at her when I knew that what she said about being honest - tough love, I supposed - was true; I’d just hoped she’d feel differently. If I was being as honest as she was, I’d already started to doubt myself, but I’d hoped that if she backed me up, even just a little bit, that I wouldn’t feel so guilty. “I just, is it really his place to tell me what I have to tell my mom, and when?”

“No,” she said slowly and carefully, like she was talking to one of her boys, “but that's not what he did. He told you how it makes him feel that you haven't told her, and why it makes him feel that way. He com-mu-ni-cate-ed. Yeah, he said he thinks you  _ should  _ tell her, but he didn't demand it.” 

“He just, he doesn't understand,” I doubled down. “He doesn't know what she's like.” 

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

I squinted down at my feet in confusion as I paced the living room. “What?”

“He doesn't understand because you haven't told him. I'd've thought you'd heard that enough from him by now for it to sink in.”

I stopped walking and dropped my head back so that I stared up at the ceiling, one hand gripping the phone as I pressed it to my ear and the other digging into my hip a little too tightly for comfort. “You are seriously on his side on this one, aren't you?”

Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “No babe, I'm on your side 117%. And that's why I'm not going to let you mess this up. If anybody knows what your family is like, it's me. And I have no problem whatsoever being your typical go-to person when you have issues with them because I  _ do  _ already know all the history and everything you've been through.” Ashley and I had been best friends since I was in second grade and she was in first. Not only had she been around since I was too young to know to be ashamed of the way my parents acted, that lack of shame allowing me to tell her nearly everything, but she’d actually seen a lot of their bad behavior firsthand. And through every fight, every drunken or paranoid tirade my step-dad had gone on, every guilt trip my mom had put me through, every time I’d been expected to be the adult, even as early as age 10 or 11, she’d been by my side, listening and sympathizing or providing welcome distractions, always seeming to know which was the appropriate choice. Even as we’d gotten older and the physical distance between us had grown, that support and emotional closeness had never waned. 

“But he's not some work friend or gym buddy. You love him, and based on all the signs, including the fact that he’s flat out told you so, he feels the same way. You can't keep shutting him out on this stuff and expect it not to make him feel like you're pushing him away. And you can't keep hiding him from your family and expect it not to make him feel shitty.”

“But I'm not close with them, you know that.” I was grasping at straws by that point. 

“Yeah, I do, but they still affect your life. You're not keeping this from them because they're unimportant, you're keeping it from them because you're scared of having the conversation and dealing with what comes next. But are you really willing to lose  _ him  _ over  _ that _ ?”

Dammit. “No, but -”

She cut me off, “You're not there yet, but you keep this up and you will be. So, call your mom, tell her you two are together, listen to all the reasons you're a terrible daughter and a disrespectful widow,” I rolled my eyes at the absolute truth of that assessment, “then give her just a few of the ten thousand reasons you've been an amazing daughter for the past 36 years and taken care of her when she was unable or unwilling to take care of herself, tell her that 'widow' is not your identity and that it's been almost two years and you don't have to see yourself that way, at least not as just that, for the rest of your life, and then finish by letting her know that you'll be spending Christmas in Boston with someone who loves you and respects you and never tries to make you feel bad about yourself and that if she plays her cards right, one day she'll get to meet him. Then, call that man, apologize for being a brat and a chicken, and tell him at least one thing that no one else besides me knows.” I half expected to hear a gasp to replace all the air she must have expended during that speech. I swear she didn’t take a single breath the entire time.

I knew she was right, which means I knew Chris had been right earlier, but I wasn’t about to just openly admit that to her. While I was often a complete pushover, even a doormat, when it came to letting other people have their way or doing things to serve others at the expense of myself, I could also be stubborn as hell. Ashley usually only got the latter. “Okay, I don't know that that last part is necessary.”

“Maybe not,” I could hear the slight softening in her voice and I knew she could tell I’d given in, even if my words still sounded like fighting back, “but it will show him that you're trying, that you plan to let him in, even though it's hard for you. And then, to  _ properly _ make it up to him, and yourself too, let's be honest, phone sex.”

“Ashley!” I gasped then practically screeched her name.

“Oh come  _ on,” _ if it was possible to hear an eyeroll, I just had, “you see each other like once a month, don't act like you don't do something to bridge the gap in between.” I spluttered and my mouth opened and closed a few times wordlessly. “That's what I thought. No answer. That's a yes.”

I finally managed, “We only even slept together for the first time less than two months ago.”

She hummed into the phone. “Funny, none of those words were,  _ I do not have phone sex with my crazy hot boyfriend with the smooth, sexy voice."  _

I switched my phone to speakerphone just so I could cross my arms over my chest like a petulant child. It was honestly surprising that I didn’t throw in a foot stomp. “I do not owe you an explanation.”

“Phone sex,” she sing-songed.

“You're deranged.”

“Phone. Sex.”

“You know what, I have to go.” I held the phone up in front of my face and spoke ‘to’ it as if I was looking at her, my lips pursed and my eyebrows raised.

“So you can call your mom?” She sounded gentler as she said that than she had for the past minute or so.

I sighed and dropped my shoulders away from my ears, my left hand coming up to curl over my right as it held the phone, lowering it to about my waist. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. And then you can call Chris for phone sex.”

I snapped my eyes closed and ground my teeth together for just a second before snapping a definitive, “Goodbye,” and hanging up the phone without waiting for a response. It would be okay, I was pretty sure I heard her snickering on the other end of the line.


	5. Mom; Part II

_ 9 months together (October, Year 2); 1 hour later _

I’d puttered around the house for a little while when I got off the phone, tidying things that were already neat and flipping through the stack of papers I’d finished grading the night before. It was less than an hour before I could no longer pretend to be productive while putting off calling my mom. So, I leashed up Millie, grabbed my headphones on the off chance I managed to get off the phone with her before getting back to the house, and headed out with my phone in hand. We hadn’t even made it to the end of the driveway before she answered. “Hey,” I greeted, trying to be upbeat, but my voice pulled down by my anxiety.

“Hi. What are you doing?”

I shrugged as if she could see me, giving a cursory glance to my right before crossing the street; I lived on a dead-end, the only people who ever crossed that street were my neighbors parking in front of their own house or the rare visitors that I had. “Just walking Millie.”

“Oh,” her voice was flat, “I should've known, that's the only time you ever call me. I guess I don't warrant a sit-down phone-call.” I’d heard that complaint so many times I didn’t bother trying to think of a response. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had, since she just kept talking. “Anyway, let me tell you what your brother did to me this week.” I pretty much stopped listening at that point, thinking instead about the previous day’s rehearsal and the things I needed the kids to work on when we met again on Monday. I caught snippets here and there, enough to know that it was just like every other fight they had - my brother took advantage of her, treated her with disrespect, repeatedly chose his wife and her family over his own, including his kids, my mom complained about it to my grandmother and me and probably a dozen other people but still ran back to him at his every call and did nearly everything for him like he was still a kid. It was exhausting. Finally I heard her sigh and I tuned back in. “But what can I do, you know? It's not like I've got anybody here to stand up for me or take my side on this stuff. It's always me, him, and his wife, and of course she's going to be on his side. Hell, most of the time she  _ is  _ the problem. It might be different if you were here, we could stand up to him together. But you're not, so whatever.” Oh yeah, and it always ended up being my fault, or at least something I could solve, if only I would give up the life I’d spent the last almost 20 years working to build and go home. The thing was, she’d adored my husband, and while he was alive I really only had to hear the occasional sugar coated guilt trip. Since he’d passed, though, she’d given up any pretense of respecting the choices I made and the life I’d created and made no secret of the fact that she fully expected me to abandon it all to go home and take care of her, or at least be her enabler. 

I didn’t say any of that though, focusing instead on my brother. “You know that wouldn't help anything. I'm the one person, well, besides Granny, who will actually call him on his crap, and he basically hates me for it. Having me up there on your side would not work in your favor.” There were times when the fact that my brother hated me so much was just a convenient truth.

“Well, even if that's true,” she knew it was, “at least I wouldn't be all alone when he gets mad at me. I'd still have you, and you know you're my very best friend in the world.” Ahh yes, another of her favorites. I’d found it a bit annoying and a bit sad when she’d said it while my husband was living. Since he’d been gone, she’d weaponized it. “Whatever, it doesn't matter, because you're not here. So I guess I'll just be on my best behavior and keep my mouth shut for the next three weeks or so, or I'll be spending Thanksgiving alone, since you're not even coming here for that. There's still time to change your mind on that, you know.” She barely even bothered to change her tone on that last part.

I took a deep breath, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to steady myself. Millie just sat and looked up at me expectantly. I still wasn’t comfortable doing it, but if I was going to talk to her about Chris, she’d just opened the door. “Actually,” I dropped my head back and squeezed my eyes shut, “there's not.” I nodded at Millie and we started walking again. “Like I've told you many times, the drive itself basically ends up taking a whole day each way, which means I'm home for three days, max, then driving all day just to get home a few hours before I have to go to bed to get up and go to work the next morning. And as,” stressed, anxious, frustrated, at odds, “ _ busy  _ as we would be for the three days that I could be there, I would be exhausted when I went back to work. The alternative to that is to only stay for two days so I can have a recovery day when I come back, and that just seems pointless.” None of that was new. I’d been making that case for as long as I’d been out of college, as long as I’d been married. We’d made it back a couple times, when we lived in Louisiana and the school district where I taught closed for the entire week of Thanksgiving, but we generally made it a rule to just stay wherever ‘home’ was and keep to ourselves or enjoy the day with friends. I hadn’t changed that the previous year, the first Thanksgiving since I’d been widowed, and I hadn’t given her any reason to think I would change it that year.

“I thought that's what they made planes for,” she retorted.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. “Yeah, and that's expensive.”

“Psht, you can afford it. You were always making plenty more money than me, and now you've got the life insurance money.” Yet another of her favorite tunes. Yeah, sure, my husband and I had made more money than she ever had, pretty much from day one. Hell, we made more money than both she and my step-dad put together had for much of my childhood and teenage years. The result of that was that we fit squarely into the ‘middle class’ category rather than the poverty I’d spent most of my younger years in. We also spent our money much differently than my parents had, opting for mid-level to high-quality in most of our purchases when possible rather than quick, easy, and cheap, and saving a portion of every paycheck for the future. So yeah, she was right that I (we) made more than she did, but we didn’t have the romanticized life that she liked to think we did. And as far as the life insurance, well, I hadn’t had to worry about funeral expenses, since he’d been killed in action, so I’d paid off our house, created education trust funds for both of my husband’s nephews, and put most of the rest into a retirement fund, leaving just enough in my regular savings account so that I could pull out a sort of ‘allowance’ each month to make up for the loss of his income if and when needed - it was rarely needed because I continued to live simply, frugally (that frugality in comparison to Chris’s financial situation was part of the reason that, so far, I’d gone to visit Chris twice, compared to the several times he’d come to me; the rest of the reason was my steady Monday to Friday job most of the year).

“That's not” I took a deep breath to compose myself before I snapped at her. I chose instead to change the subject a bit. “Well, there's another reason I can't change my plans now. I've got someone coming here to spend the holiday with me.”

“Who? His family? That would've been nice to know. You'd think the nice thing to do would have been to invite your mom along.” Of course, it was always about her. She was always the victim.

“No, it's not them. Just, just let me talk, please.”

“It's not like I was stopping you.”

I ground my teeth together for a second. “I've been dating someone. Well, not  _ dating  _ exactly,” I always hated saying it that way, as the term ‘dating,’ to me, made it sound like there were multiple people involved, like I’d made a decision to go out and start exploring my options, and in reality it had always been just him and me. I still don’t think, even at that point almost two years after losing my husband, that I would have been ready for actual dating. But Chris? Well, he was a different story.  _ We  _ were a different story. “It's just him, we're together. And we're going to spend Thanksgiving together. We're having dinner at my friend Chelsea's house.”

“I didn't know you were dating.” It was very much an accusation.

“Well, like I said, it's not dating, really. I didn't go out looking for someone or anything like that. We were friends, and then we became more than friends, and now we're really together, exclusively.”

“How long has this been going on?” 

I stared at my feet as they shuffled through the gravel at the entrance to the small park in my neighborhood, moving slowly as Millie sniffed what seemed to be each individual stone. “Umm, a while. It's Chris Evans, from the movie.” I squeezed my eyes tight as I said it. “That's how we met, of course, and then we just kept talking until it grew into what it is now.”

“Wow, you didn't waste any time, did you?”

“Mom -” I’d expected something like that, but it still hurt. 

“I mean, you meet a man making a movie about your dead husband, then you start dating him. That just seems pretty tacky to me, and you sure didn't wait very long to do it.”

I tugged Millie’s leash, careful not to jerk too hard out of frustration and hurt, and guided her back to the road to head back home. “He's been dead for almost two years. He'd been gone for a year before Chris and I started dating.” 

“I just don't know if getting to have a fling with your celebrity crush is really worth disrespecting your husband like that.”

I’d come to hate that word,  _ fling _ . I had nothing against  _ actual  _ flings, so long as they were mutual and consensual. Hell, I imagine it would be a lot of fun, as long as you went in with reasonable expectations and got out before anyone’s feelings got hurt. But that’s not what we had, and it wasn’t the first time someone had referred to it that way. (On my end, most people who I’d told about the relationship had been wonderful - I’d been very selective about who I’d told - but there’d been a few who’d thrown around the term ‘celebrity fling’ once or twice. And on Chris’s end, well, there had been a few people who had learned of his ‘non-industry girlfriend’ who’d assumed I was a game, more than anything, a fun little detour on his way back to his real life. Or that I was just using him. I wasn’t sure which assumption hurt worse.) 

“It's not a -” I cut myself off and took a deep breath. “Look Mom, I'm 36 years old, I'm not asking your permission here. But I'm your daughter, and even though you don't seem to see this, I've spent most of my life supporting you and being there for you and generally trying to do anything I could to make you happy. It would be really, really nice if you could see that I've got someone in my life who is good to me and who cares about me and actually be happy for me. But if you can't do that, that's on you. It's not going to change anything. I was just letting you know that Chris and I are very much together, he's coming to spend Thanksgiving with me in Virginia, and he's invited me to come to Boston to spend Christmas with him and his family.” Well, I hadn’t meant to just blurt it out like that, but there it was. In for a penny, in for a pound. “And I said yes. It only seems fair, since he's coming to me for Thanksgiving.”

“So you'll make time for his family but not for your own?” 

My face and neck flamed with heat. “That's all -” I stopped myself again. I was going to say  _ That’s all you got from that?,  _ but I knew it was a mistake to actually invite her to say more. Instead I went on as calmly and rationally as I could manage. “He's very close with his family. His siblings are his best friends. He won't be with them for Thanksgiving because he'll be with me. We're all used to me not making it home for the holidays; it's not like that for him. He invited me to go, and I'm going, because it seems fair, but also because I care, I love him.” Holy shit. I hadn’t actually planned to say that to her. Not because it wasn’t true; it was very, completely true. I just, I’d thought to ease into it a little more, not give her more ammunition than necessary. But once the words were out there, hanging around me as I walked, I couldn’t help but feel the warmth of them. It felt good to say, it always did. And saying it gave me strength and a certain calm that made it easier to go on, my voice steady and sure. “He's an amazing man and I love him and I think it's clear that you're not going to be supportive of that, but hopefully over time you'll get used to it and accept it enough that I feel comfortable bringing him back there.”

“Well, I don't think you're being fair.” She actually managed to rustle up some amount of righteous indignation. “Not to me, and not to your poor husband, who deserves better than this.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way, but like I said, it's not going to change anything. Now I need to go, because we're home and I've got work I need to do.” We weren’t and I didn’t, but whatever. “Have a good night, goodbye.” I waited just a second to see if she might have anything reasonable to say to that, and when nothing came out right away I hung up, satisfied that I’d done what I needed to do.

***

I resisted the urge to call Chris as soon as I walked through the door and let Millie off her leash. For one thing, I knew he was busy. I didn’t know how long that conference call he’d had earlier was supposed to take, but I expected that it would come with some follow-up work and preparation for his trip to D.C. the following day. For another thing, if I’d called him right then, I’d almost certainly have come off sounding like a little kid exclaiming to her parents,  _ Look at what I did! _ , expecting praise for simply doing what needed to be done. As much as it pained me to admit it, Chris was right when he pointed out that telling at least my mom about him was something that should have happened much earlier, and it made me feel even worse that it had taken Ashley to finally get through to me on that front. I didn’t really have the right to call him and brag about doing the bare minimum. Instead, I set my phone aside and picked my computer to take care of some very important, and much more pleasant, business.

A while later, purchases made and my heart no longer racing from the anxiety caused by the conversation with my mom, I allowed myself to pick the phone back up, texting Chris rather than calling him.  **_Call me tomorrow when you get settled in?_ **

His response came almost instantly.  **_Course. Need to talk right now?_ **

I smiled down at the phone as I typed my answer. I had no doubt he was busy in one way or another, prepping for the following day’s meetings, packing, getting Dodger lined out for a few days of him being gone. But I also knew that if I’d said ‘Actually, yes,’ he’d have dropped it all and called me. **_No, it's okay, you’re busy and you need to go to bed soon. Just the first chance tomorrow that it's convenient._**

**_First chance I get, promise. But I can call right now._ **

I actually felt a little bad for how happy that made me. I would never use my ‘power’ to get him to drop more important things just to deal with me, but it felt incredibly good to know that he was willing to prioritize me, us.  **_It's really, really okay. Get your beauty sleep, you need it. ;)_ **

His response came quickly and I imagined him grinning as he typed.  **_Yes maam._ **

**_I love you._ ** I wrote, typing again as soon as I’d hit send.  **_A lot._ ** Then, adding one more message to the string,  **_For a lot of reasons._ **

**_I love you too sweet girl. For so many reasons._ **

The message wasn’t surprising. As he’d assured me before we got off the phone, I knew that even though he was frustrated with me, the love hadn’t gone anywhere. Still, when the message came through, I released tension from my body that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.  **_Gnight._ **

**_Night baby girl._ **

***

I was just getting out of my post-gym shower late the next morning when the phone rang, interrupting the podcast I’d been listening to. I saw Chris’s grinning face, the photo from just before the premiere that I’d cropped and assigned as his contact picture, in the center of the screen and took a split second to glance at the time in the upper right hand corner before answering. “Hey,” I set the phone to speaker and set it on the edge of the counter as I smoothed lotion over my legs. Ashley would have had a field day with the whole situation. At least it was a traditional phone call and not a video call.

“Hey you.”

“It's earlier than I expected to hear from you,” I told him. I’d asked him to call as soon as it was convenient, but I’d expected that to be sometime in the later afternoon or early evening. Most of his ‘real work’ would be happening the next day, but there had been a couple people who’d said they actually preferred to meet with him and Mark on a Sunday, since it would avoid taking up time on an actual work day. Gotta love that first-term enthusiasm. Anyway, I hadn’t expected to hear from him until after those couple meetings, and I knew they couldn’t possibly have happened yet, since, if I was doing my clock math correctly, they’d only have landed in D.C. less than an hour earlier.

“Yeah, we just got to the hotel and everyone else went to lunch.” That made sense. What didn’t make sense was that he’d stayed behind.

“You didn't go with them?”

He scoffed. “No, 'cause my girlfriend sent me a 'we need to talk' text last night and scared the shit out of me. I was barely able to wait this long. I was tempted to lock myself in the airplane bathroom and call from there.” I could tell that he was forcing levity into his voice, which meant that he was joking, but only by half.

I cringed a little as I closed the tube of body cream I’d been using and put it back into the cabinet. When I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror I was blushing. “Okay, I never said 'we need to talk.'”

“Let's see, what was it …” his voice trailed off and I could tell when he also switched to speaker due to the difference in the volume of the background noise, street sounds that made me wonder if he had his hotel room window open. “'Call me tomorrow when you get settled in' and 'the first chance tomorrow that's convenient.' That's pretty damn close to 'we need to talk.'”

My head fell forward until my chin hit my chest as I smoothed the waistband of my panties across my hips and reached for my bra where it was draped over the towel bar. He had a point. “Okay, well, that's not how I meant it to come across. It's just that normally when one of us is working we don't really talk until the end of the day,

” I paused as I reached behind me to clasp the hooks of the bra and when I went on my voice was a little smaller than usual, “and I'm being selfish and didn't want to wait that long.”

He laughed a little, “Yeah, that was  _ not  _ clear.”

I looked down at the phone and traced the tip of my index finger over the edge of the vanity. “I'm sorry.”

He chuckled again. “It's okay babe, if this is your idea of being selfish, I'm good with that.”

The reassurance made me smile, and I stood up straighter and pulled the towel off my wet hair, shaking it out and combing my fingers through it as I spoke. “I did want to tell you something, though.”

“Ahhhh,” he drew the word out for an unnecessarily long beat, “there it is.”

“No, it's not,” I stopped running the comb through my hair long enough to shake my head, more at myself than him, “I bought my plane tickets for Christmas.” I looked at the phone, waiting for his response.

It was exactly what I could have hoped for. “Yeah?” His voice was excited, a little higher than usual.

I grinned. “Yep. I'll get in Friday night, too late to really do anything other than head straight to your house and turn in for the night, but still, Friday.” I didn’t think I needed to point out the whole ‘one more night in your bed,’ part, I figured it was clear enough.

“That's okay,” he assured me quickly, “I'll have dinner ready at home and maybe a movie or something. Whatever you want to come home to and get settled in comfortably.”

‘Home.’ I liked that. I mean, I knew he wasn’t exactly calling his house my home, but he didn’t call it ‘my house’ either, so it was a step, one that made butterflies come to life in my stomach. “That sounds great. I'll be heading back out the Sunday after the holidays, the 2nd. That one's an earlier flight, late morning, so I can get back to my house and start to get my routine back in order before heading back to work.” I carried the phone with me out of the bathroom as I talked, heading toward my closet. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt and made my way to the living room, finally switching my phone out of speaker mode and holding it to my ear. 

“Hey, that makes perfect sense. I'm just happy you got your tickets, that it's official.”

“Yeah, I bought them last night.” I dropped onto the couch and switched on the television, flipping through the channels until I landed on pre-game coverage for the first round of NFL games for the day. I dropped the remote beside me and took a deep breath. “After I talked to my mom.”

“Oh.” It went quiet for a second. I didn’t say anything either, because I knew he had more to say. I just waited. “Look,” he finally started up again, “I wasn't trying to push you into doing something  _ right now _ , necessarily. Honestly, I wasn't trying to push you at all. I just, I wanted you to see where I was coming from.”

I shook my head. “No, I know. But you were right, I was wrong.”

“I'm sorry, what was that?”His voice was laced with far too much faux shock and I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, don't be a dick.”

“Sorry, I just loved the way that sounded.” I rolled my eyes again and muttered a sarcastic  _ haha _ , making him snicker. “But seriously baby, are you okay? And, not that I don't think it was a good decision, but what changed your mind from when you and I talked?”

I scoffed, hard. “Tough love. I called Ashley, to complain about you, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And she said,” I took a deep breath, exaggerating it so that it was loud enough for him to hear through the phone, “well, brace yourself because it's the last time I'm going to say it, but she said, 'He's right, you're wrong.'” I heard him moan, an almost sexual sound. First I’d been naked, and now this. Ashley really would have a field day if she knew about this conversation. “She helped me realize that the real reason I hadn't said anything to my mom was because I was scared.”

“What were you scared of?” he asked, all teasing gone from his voice. “That she wouldn't approve?”

I sighed and reached for the remote to turn down the volume of the television. “No, not really. I mean, you know it’s really important to me to make the people around me happy. It always has been, and obviously that extended to my parents. But I haven't needed her _ approval _ since I was, I don't know, a pre-teen or young teenager.” I couldn’t help but stare down into my lap and pick at my jeans. “Even by that point I realized that she was doing a lot of things wrong and making a lot of bad decisions, so I knew her approval didn't really mean much. I just, I think I was afraid that she would use my husband's death and my anxiety against me and end up making me question myself, question us.”

“How would she do that?” he asked, softly.

“Well, I've told you that she expected me to come home as soon as he died. It really bothers her that I haven't done that. And she knows how my anxiety affects me. I mean, I don't think she thinks of it that way, as anxiety, I think she just sees it as a weakness she can exploit. She knows I'm terrified of letting people down or failing others, so she uses that to get things from me. I was afraid that she would try to tell me that being with you meant that I was failing my husband, somehow. And worse, that I would buy into it and that it would make me subconsciously screw up what we have.” Speaking of anxiety, I could feel it creeping up on me. Apparently so could Millie, because she rose from her bed on the other side of the room and came to sit just in front of the couch, her chin resting softly on my knee. I switched my phone to my free hand, freeing up the one closer to her so I could run my hand over her head and down her neck over and over again, the repetition soothing.

“Is that what she did?” His voice was also soothing, low and soft and gentle.

“She tried.”

“It didn't work?”

“I called her shortly after I got off the phone with Ashley, so I had her voice in the back of my mind the whole time telling me to suck it up and be a big girl,” I didn’t need to tell him that her voice was also telling me that it wasn’t worth losing him over my fear of talking to my mom, or that I also heard his voice telling me that he was going to get tired of being a secret, “and I just didn't really let my mom finish. I said what I had to say, told her I didn't really care what she thought about it, shaking the whole time, then told her I had to go. She got a couple digs in, but not many.”

He hummed, quiet, thoughtful, then asked, “So, how do you feel now? Are her digs working?”

“I don't think so?” It wasn’t meant to be a question, but I wasn’t confident enough to say it any other way. “I mean, I didn't think twice about buying the plane tickets as soon as I got off the phone with her. I have no second thoughts about us, or about coming up there.”

“Hey, that's a good start. And look, now that I know that's what's going on in your head, I know to watch out for it, and if it comes up, we'll deal with it. Together.

“That's the other thing,” I let my hand come to a stop on top of Millie’s head and ran my thumb up and down between her eyes, “you were also right about me not telling you enough.”

He sighed then, and I had a moment’s worry that I was annoying or frustrating him, “Babe, I'm not asking you to change everything overnight here. I'm not asking you to  _ change  _ at all. I just -”

“No,” I jumped in, cutting him off unintentionally, “I'm telling you you were right, and I mean it. You said you would respect that my relationship with my family is complicated, and you've done that. But I should respect you enough to at least let you know what that means. I mean, me not telling you things was never about respect, not really, it was about fear, but still. I need to get over that.”

“I don't even understand what you're afraid  _ of _ .” From anyone else that would probably have sounded like a complaint. From him it somehow sounded almost like reassurance, like a promise that there was nothing to be afraid of, that I didn’t need to be scared because I had his support.

“Honestly? I don't either. I just know that any time I think about telling you some of the specifics, my anxiety goes through the roof, and I just, I lose my nerve. It's like imposter syndrome, almost.” I’d always refrained from telling people much about my family, or, as an adult, my childhood. And I knew he was different, that I could trust him, but that almost made it worse somehow. The more I knew that he wouldn’t be unfair to me because of the messier parts of my past, the more I felt like I wanted to protect him from knowing about it. “I still don't feel like I deserve you, and every day that goes by I'm just hoping that you don't figure that out. And the more you know about my family and my childhood and all that, the more likely you are to see that you are so, so far out of my league.”

“You can't actually believe that.”

My eyes went wide and I nodded. “Oh trust me, I do.”

“Do you need me to go over all the ways you're better than me?” It sounded almost like a threat, but in a positive way, if such a thing is possible. “Because I'm more than happy to do that. I have a list, ready to go.”

I rolled my eyes as I told him, “No, I don't need that.” 

“Are you sure? Cause, just to start with, you're smarter than me, and -”

I closed my eyes tightly and grimaced a little. “Chris, stop, please. I know you're trying to help, and I love you so much for that, but honestly, it's going to make me uncomfortable.” I tried to sound as serious as possibly without coming off as bitchy.

“Yeah,” he sounded a little disappointed, “you're not great at being told how awesome you are.”

I took a deep breath and steeled myself. If I was going to do it, to open the door, or at least a window, and start letting him in, there was never going to be a better time. “Well, I think that's a family thing, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, this probably isn't exactly what you were asking for -”

“Babe,” he stopped me, “I wasn't  _ asking  _ for anything. Yeah, I want to know more about you, all of you, but I wasn't  _ asking  _ for anything. I just want to know anything you feel comfortable telling me. And I hope, over time, that it will be more than what you’ve told me so far.”

I ignored that for the most part, because I didn’t want to allow myself to believe that he was giving me an out. Even if he wasn’t asking me for anything, it was something I needed to do. “Well, you do already know that I've never known my biological father and that my step-dad was around from when I was a baby until I was in high school.” That was one of those ‘few facts’ he’d referred to the day before. “My step-dad was really hard on me. Not abusive, but really strict, really high expectations. And in some ways, that wasn't a bad thing. I mean, for example, I always just assumed that I would succeed in school and go on to college, because that was what was expected of me. It was never a question. That turned out to be a very good thing for me and it's a big part of the reason I have the life I have. But in other ways, it wasn't so great. 

“For example, I was kind of a chubby kid. Not even chubby, maybe, I just, well, I didn't lose my baby fat until I was like 28. My brother has also been on the bigger side for his entire life. My mom has been overweight my whole life. My dad, well, step-dad, was the only person in my family who was thin. And I won’t even say he was 'fit,' because he didn't do anything to be that way. He didn't work out or anything, he just got lucky with his body type and metabolism. Anyway, for as long as I can remember, from about 4th or 5th grade until the day he left, I remember him frequently telling me that I could be so pretty if I would just lose some weight, do a few crunches. I could be a beautiful girl if I would just get rid of my 'tummy.'” 

I’d gotten on a roll then, and couldn’t seem to stop. I’d spent some time the previous evening thinking up a few examples of those things Ashley had referred to that only she knew, but I hadn’t had an outline or anything. I thought I would just say the first thing that popped into my head then let it go for the time being and find a way to tell him more later. But I hadn’t talked about my step-dad to anyone in a long, long time, and he seemed to be a central piece of everything that had stuck with me from my childhood, either because of things he’d said and done, because of my mom’s codependence on him and the way it had affected my relationship with her, or because of his influence on my brother. Typically I thought of my silence about him as a way to protect myself, but since I’d started telling Chris things, even just that one thing, really, it was a little hard to stop. I’m sure there was some catharsis just in letting it out, but I knew without a doubt that it had even more to do with him being who he was, and making me feel the way he did.

“He was also really good at making me feel stupid,” I went on. “Like, I would ask him questions, normal curious kid questions, and he would look at me and say things like,  _ 'Did you really just ask me that? Seriously? I can't believe you need to ask something like that. I thought you were supposed to be a smart kid. You need to work on that.'  _ Looking back now, I realize he probably just didn't know the answers to what I was asking, but at the time I just felt stupid. I also realize now that most of his rules and punishments were more about control than discipline or keeping me safe. And my mom would sit by and just watch, and listen. Sometimes I would go to her for support, and either I would get in trouble for trying to undermine him, or she would just tell me that I needed to listen to him because he was an adult and a man and I just needed to do what I was told.” I took a deep, shaky breath. I actually had to stop myself from saying more, things about some of the sexist rules I was expected to follow and the double standards and the behavior that bordered on gaslighting. I didn’t want to overwhelm either of us; all that had happened in the past and it wasn’t going to change between then and the next time Chris and I talked about it. 

“I know that in the grand scheme of things, none of the things I just said are all that bad. I was fed, I had a roof over my head, most of the time, I got a good education, I was never hit or physically abused in any way, and ultimately, I've become a successful, happy, somewhat well-adjusted adult. But I think that sort of thing is why I'm so bad at taking compliments now. I was taught not to expect them, and that accepting them openly, or really being proud of myself in any way, was arrogant and undeserved. So now it's just second nature to deflect.”

“Baby …”

The word was heavy, loaded, and the way he trailed off at the end of it made it seem as if he didn’t know what else to say and was just trying to fill the gap between us.

“Like I said, I know what I just said probably isn't as big of a deal as I've made it out to be in my head.” I shrugged and pulled my legs up onto the couch, tucking my feet under opposite thighs. “I think that's another reason I don't like to talk about it, what if I'm just, I don't know, being overly sensitive, whiny, making something out of nothing? I know there are so, so many people who have been through so much worse, so who am I to complain?” 

“No, that's not,” he sounded a little frustrated, and he stopped and sucked in a long, deep breath that I heard through the phone. “You're  _ amazing _ and there are so many things you should be proud of. I  _ wish  _ I'd known adorable little 10-year-old you. I bet that girl was awesome. The fact that anyone, let alone your parents, would make you think that you need to close yourself off and hide the way you still do makes me so fucking angry.” I actually thought I could hear his anger a little - a slight growl in his voice, certain words muffled as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. “And I hope you know that now it's going to be even more my mission to make sure you finally start to realize that you deserve every good thing you have, and then some.” His voice softened, “And I hope you consider me, our relationship, one of those good things.”

I pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping one arm around them and pressing the phone even more tightly to my ear with the other hand. “It's the best thing.” I chewed softly on my bottom lip and he said nothing in the moment of silence, so after only a second or two I went on. “I don't know if that really counts as far as the kind of thing you wanted me to tell you, since he's not in my life anymore -”

“Again baby, I had no expectations. There was nothing I wanted other than to get to learn more about you. It's not a homework assignment. I just want you to share things with me when it's relevant. And, even more than that, for you to trust me enough that you can stop thinking I'm going to leave you if I find out the ugly parts of your past. Unless you've actually got a secret identity and are on the run from the FBI, all that matters to me is who you are now.” He paused and I was pretty sure he wanted me to laugh, so I allowed myself to do so, just a little chuckle through my nose, and when he finished his voice was kind, gently prodding. “But I really like learning how you became this person.”

“I do trust you, I promise. I'm just scared.” I hesitated to say what I said next. I didn’t think he would be upset or offended by it; he never had been before, and considering how and why we met, I couldn’t imagine that he would be. Still, talking to a significant other about a former  _ very  _ significant other was never easy. Was it? I wasn’t sure, actually, I’d never been in that position before. Either way, the themes of the day were openness and honesty, so it seemed worth a shot to just put it out there. “I was in love with the same person for over half my life, and that was supposed to be it. And then I lost that. And then you were there, completely unexpected and too good to be true, and for reasons that make less than zero sense to me, you want me, you want to be with me. And now I'm in love with you.” Oh. Wow. That just kind of, came out. I mean, yeah, we’d said the three words, we’d been saying them for months, but  _ in love _ , well, that felt more intense, somehow. Oh well, nothing to do but roll with it. It’s certainly not like it wasn’t true.

So I went on, “And I'm terrified that one day you're going to realize how much better you could be doing. That's not because I don't trust you, it's because even I think you can do better. But I'm working on letting that go, I promise. And I'm working on letting you in more. Just be patient, please? Push me now and then if you need to, but understand I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm not  _ trying  _ to shut you out. I've just literally never shared these things with anyone before. My husband and Ashley were around when most of the big stuff actually happened, so it was easy to tell them the little stuff. I wasn't scared of them getting turned off by what I told them, or thinking I was making stuff up or making something out of nothing, because they'd been seeing it all along. Until now, they're the only people I've ever talked to about my family, aside from typical, surface-level stuff. I want to let you in, but it's a hard habit to break.” And okay, word vomit wasn’t exactly uncommon for me, but yeah. That may have taken things to a new level. I hoped he really did mean it when he said he wanted me to let him in, because the doors had just been blown off the hinges.

“I get all of that, I do,” he said, as if I hadn’t just dumped thirty-something odd years of crap on him. “And I really, really don't want to push, I just get frustrated sometimes. I don't expect you to tell me every single thing that's ever happened in your life, but some things, here and there, can go a long way. Especially when it relates to things like why you don't want me to meet them, or why you won't tell them that I exist

The hand that was wrapped around my legs, the one that had been squeezing my opposite calf so tightly that my knuckles had gone white, slid down to my ankle and picked at the hem of my jeans. “Yeah, I'm really, really sorry about that. I definitely should have done that earlier.”

“But hey, here's the big thing, this may come as a surprise to you, but I'm in love with you too, you know.” My stomach flipped and my face split into a grin and I pressed my forehead to the tops of my knees as if there was someone to hide my burning cheeks from. “I'm not going to judge you because people out of your control did and said terrible things, and I'm not going to think you're making something out of nothing. If it hurt you, if it affected you, then it's not nothing. Believe me when I say my first instinct, the only thing I want to do, will always be to support you, even to protect you, if need be.” It was quiet for a second and then he groaned a little. “God baby, I hate that I keep having to do this, but I really have to go. Mark's texted me three times that he grabbed me a sandwich to go and they're waiting for me in the lobby.”

I glanced up at the tv and the first game of the day had started, which meant the conversation had gone on longer than I’d realized, probably much longer than he meant it to. I felt bad for holding him up. “No no, you definitely need to go. You have big, important work to do.”

“Can I call you again tonight?” I hated that he felt like he needed to ask, that he even seemed hesitant to do so, but I loved that he seemed to want to so much. “Now that we've sorted out some of this heavy stuff, maybe we can have a nice, normal, light conversation?”

I smirked, folding my legs back down in front of me. “You mean about things like the state of our democracy?”

He laughed then, easily one of my top five favorite sounds in the world. “Yeah, like that. Or all the things I can't wait to show you and do with you over Christmas.” He was smiling, I could hear it in his voice.

“I would like that very much. Now, go save the world, one interview at a time. I love you, Chris.”

“I love you more than you know. Take Millie on an extra-fun walk for me and I'll talk to you tonight.”

It was going to take a long, long time before he really knew the extent of just how fucked up my family was. Even if I didn’t think it was too much for him to take in all at once, it was too much for me to tell that way. But I didn’t feel scared to tell him anymore, and that seemed like a really, really good place to start.


End file.
